If ever you needed convincing that the paygap is actually a thing...

Is this because women are more able

Girls outperform boys in every GCSE subject apart from maths where performance is almost equal. Boys' performance at English GCSE is dire. I expect this feeds into A-level (haven't looked at the data) and therefore onto uni applications.

I assume the gap gets worse post peak child birth years so 10 years post graduating. I'm not sure how that is tackled as employment breaks will impact pay due to continuity and experience, but I think their is more at work than just this as some sectors do seam worse than others.

It does. Whether the woman takes time off to have children or not. Childless women are hit just like those who do take career gaps for children. There is no such hit for men, whether they have children or not.

If the wage gap were an artefact of differing graduation rates you would not expect it to persist across the whole population, regardless of education level. But it does (ifs, 2016)

Ifyiusee,

No, uni entry standards clearly same for both sexes so, logically, reasons why 30+% fewer men applying to uni are:

Women are brighter.
Education system favours female learning style.
Men not applying to unis for any other reason.

Or any combination of the above.

also think there is an element here of traditionally female areas of work being lower paid BECAUSE they are female dominated.

Absolutely.

If I could also just throw in there that there are many more high-paying jobs for boys where education is not needed. Education isn’t the be-all and end-all for many boys seeking careers.

I would hazard a guess that the reason that girls love education so much is that it provides a stratified and clear-cut system where they can prove their worth if they achieve good grades.

"
For example, creative arts, nursing, psychology and social science all have far more female than male students, while the opposite is true for architecture, computing and engineering"
I also think there is an element here of traditionally female areas of work being lower paid BECAUSE they are female dominated. Nursing, for example.

Is this because women are more able or because more lower ability women are nonetheless going to uni?

I genuinely don’t understand this sentence. If low-ability women are getting into uni then so are low-ability men?

There’s no lowering of A-Level grades for girls to get in is there?

You have to be careful with this data.

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/men-in-higher-education-the-numbers-dont-look-good-guys/2011807.article

Many more women are graduating than men. Is this because women are more able or because more lower ability women are nonetheless going to uni? If you were to add in the men who did not get to uni,what would the numbers look like?

Hard to get clean data.

Agree it wrong for their to be a gap. If you took out 5 the effects of more women choosing lower paying vocations (such as the arts) the gap would be significantly lower. An interesting graphic I'd like to see is the same chart by subject/degree type and see which lead on to the greatest pay inequality. I think that would help focus attention on the worst sectors.
I assume the gap gets worse post peak child birth years so 10 years post graduating. I'm not sure how that is tackled as employment breaks will impact pay due to continuity and experience, but I think their is more at work than just this as some sectors do seam worse than others.