I've googled it as it was ages ago I read it and the studies were actually using ONS data. However, it was young childless women that earned more, which supports my view that it's possibly motherhood which is the main obstacle rather than just men flat out being paid more - women going part time, becoming more focused on family than work, and of course discrimination in favour of candidates with no dependents.
And of course women who choose the easy life once they have a high earning husband who is happy to be the breadwinner (mumsnet hates these women but they seem to exist in large numbers).
Data provided by the Office for National Statistics shows an eye-opening trend. Women are paid more than men until they reach their 40s, according to an official assessment of the gender pay gap. It found that the difference between wage levels for male and female employees leans in favour of women rather than men among workers in their 20s and 30s.
Twenty-something women have earned more than men in the same age group for the past decade. Now, in a further sign that the gender pay gap is retreating, the figures show that for the first time women in their 30s are also paid more than their male contemporaries. Men only become better paid when they reach middle age.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3214854/amp/Pay-gap-Women-earn-men-till-40s-20-woman-paid-men-age-group-decade.html
Women now earn more than men until they turn 35, when the tables are turned, new figures show. Official data found full-time women earned more than their male colleagues in their 20s and early 30s.
But at the age of 35, the trend is reversed and men then earn more money for the rest of their working life. The gender pay gap then widens in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, according to the Office for National Statistics.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2957178/amp/Women-earn-men-35-gender-pay-gap-reverses-end-earning-35-less.html
Women in their 20s have reversed the gender pay gap, but their earning power is still overtaken by men later in life. Figures compiled by the Press Association have shown that between the ages of 22 and 29, a woman will typically earn £1,111 more per annum than her male counterparts."
Using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), PA analysed the comparative earnings of men and women. While younger women in their 20s came out top in the earning stakes, the story was vastly different for workers in their 30s.
amp.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/29/women-in-20s-earn-more-men-same-age-study-finds
According to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more.
This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises. But the new study suggests that the gap is bigger than previously thought, with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively. And it also holds true even in reasonably small areas like the Raleigh-Durham region and Charlotte in North Carolina (both 14% more), and Jacksonville, Fla. (6%).
Here's the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don't live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide.
The figures come from James Chung of Reach Advisors, who has spent more than a year analyzing data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html