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

[Biggreygoose]

Hopefully the image works.

Taken from the article:

The reality is that male graduates earn more than female graduates.
The gap can already be seen only one year after graduation, when men earn an average of £1,500 (8%) more than women per year.

After five years, the gap has increased to around £3,500, or 14%.

This is likely to continue to increase with age, but it should be noted that that this gap is less than half that experienced by non-graduates.

Some - but by no means all - of this difference can be explained by differences in subject choices, with women more likely to choose courses with low earnings potential.

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.

However, a large part of this difference cannot be explained away by personal choice.

Data is from the institute of fiscal studies, which probably has the least interest in bias over the pay gap as could be expected from anyone. Median average used so impact of outlying data reduced.

Article link : www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41693230

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.

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.

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?

"
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.

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.

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

Absolutely.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

Yes, definitely.

<a class="break-all" href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html?_r=1&referer=www.reddit.com/r/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns/comments/651k3l/when_the_only_other_lgbtq_person_in_your_office_a/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html?_r=1&referer=www.reddit.com/r/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns/comments/651k3l/when_the_only_other_lgbtq_person_in_your_office_a/

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.

But this was true back when the educational system was different too - ref the 11 plus exam that you had to get a higher mark on as a girl to pass.

How is it that boys, throughout education, over 50 years of educational methods, persistently do worse, and yet still earn more?

@larry that's precisely why this median data is valuable rather than reliance on a mean. It also includes international students which goes some way to address the sex imbalance.

The gap is bigger when non graduates are included. But again this data is valuable because it removes an oft complained about variable in other data (education).

A breakdown by subject would definitely be interesting.

I suspect a breakdown by subject would feed into the balance of

"women choose lower-paying careers/subjects"
combined with
"careers/subjects thought of as female are paid less"

Education system favours female learning style

This ‘female learning style’ is ‘cracking on with the work’ in contrast to the more typical male swagger of ‘I didn’t revise at all for my GCSEs and I did all right’. One is rewarded with higher grades, because teaching is so feminised.

Obviously once in the workplace, the system of rewarding bullshit posturing that I’m sure we’ve all encountered takes priority and men surge forward.

Education system favours female learning style

How about the way we socialise boys disadvantages them in education?

The year one data accross subjects would be useful though. At that point the effect of opportunity/experience/childcare is vastly reduced.

It would be a good indicator of any institutional problem before other factors muddy the waters.

I'd be interested to see a bit more depth to the data - what industries are they graduates in for example.

If female engineering graduates are earning less than male engineering graduates then it proves the point, but if more women are graduating with Media degrees whilst more men are graduating with Law degrees then it's harder to prove as the pay expectations for the industries are different.

There's another thread on here about facilitated men. I think at the point where women start to have children this facilitation kicks in in earnest permitting the males to surge ahead. Not only do men not pay a penalty for having children but I suspect it advantages them in terms of the perception of them by others as having more gravitas.

@piffle, the article states that the choice of courses doesnt account for all of the difference though.

I would be interested to know how much it does account for though.

Obviously once in the workplace, the system of rewarding bullshit posturing that I’m sure we’ve all encountered takes priority and men surge forward.

So true

'Women choose lower paying vocational careers such as caring and nursing'.

'Women graduates are a lower standard than male graduates'.

These attitudes are why women earn less. Both for doing the same job at the same grade as men, or as an average over our working lives.

larry

Sorry if i have missed someone else comments

But i read an article that said that part of the reason more women go is that there are more spaces for 'female' subjects

So the amount of people that can take English literature is many more than those taking physics

That could obviously be wrong but it was interesting