Female graduates now earn 22% less than male.

[GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal]

According to the BBC today.

So, seeing as "trans-women are women", I'm assuming we can expect a deluge of TIMs demanding a pay cut any day now, right?

....

....

....

...Shall I put the kettle on while we wait?

Nothing yet? Shall I open some biscuits, too?

But female graduates have actually out-earned their male counterparts for a number of years now. Well, until they leave the workplace for maternity...

www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/29/women-in-20s-earn-more-men-same-age-study-finds

Not according to the BBC this morning. 22% less per hour.

Greebols, I think this is a comprehension issue. If you're talking about this article, it actually doesn't say what you're claiming...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42939584

That's the first thing I thought of Babycham.
I was under the impression female graduates earned more till taking a maternity break.
How can these reports be at odds with each other?

Wait, sorry - I'm sure the BBC headline earlier was eaxactly as per OP's thread title.
Right, that's pretty different then.

Still waiting for the volunteers to take that pay cut. It's almost as if they don't want the downside of being female...

I was also under the impression that female graduates were slightly outperforming male until kids.

While this shows a big gap.

women earn more was from press association study

last year though there was this from govt saying female graduates earn less here

Thanks for the link, UpABitLate

Except the STORY was from PA, the data were from the Office of National Statistics.

The latter link from the Independent is taking a different sample group (including those who have had children and, most likely taken time out of work or gone onto limited hours).

In fact, until childbearing, female graduates do out-earn men, and the gap is growing every year. An inconvenient truth?

This is the different between the 'gender pay gap' and 'equal pay'. These women are only 'earning less' if you ignore the total number of hours worked. Even before children, men tend to work longer hours (and with longer commutes).

It seems disingenuous, if not utterly dishonest that the Fawcett Society chooses to quote questionable and self-selected survey results from that bastion of empirical research, the 'National Student Money Survey' instead of that of the ONS. Hmmm, I wonder why they've done that....

It found the average hourly wages of men and women with degrees differed by 22% in 2016 - compared with 21% in 1993.

That's hourly rate. So men aren't earning more because they work more. They are earning more because they, overall, do not have to put children or elderly parents or strategically incompetent spouses before their career.

Women are still graduates when they become mothers. I didn't lose my 2:1 when I had a baby but I do earn less (p/h) than before I had him. It's no comfort to me that I was able to outearn my similarly qualified husband for 7 years prior. DH now earns 10k more after 4 years of being parents.

I don't know why this has been framed as an anti-trans issue but we need to work towards removing the motherhood penalty. Nobody wants trans women to earn less and that kind of rhetoric doesn't help anyone.

"I don't know why this has been framed as an anti-trans issue but we need to work towards removing the motherhood penalty. Nobody wants trans women to earn less and that kind of rhetoric doesn't help anyone."

Agreed

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/graduatesintheuklabourmarket/2017

I just went to ONS website on the strength of this thread and found this.

Figure 15a. Average hourly gross pay definitely higher for male than female graduates. Graduates between ages 21 and 64. Lower down it says:

"Concentrating on all employed graduates in July to September 2017, men earned on average £3 more an hour than women (Figure 15). This can be partly explained by the subjects male and female graduates with degrees studied. Out of the top five subjects associated with the highest average gross annual earnings, four of them were subjects which male graduates are more likely to have studied than female graduates: medicine, engineering, technology and physical or environmental subjects.

Female graduates being more likely to work part-time may also explain the differences in pay for male and female graduates. While working part-time should not affect a person’s hourly wage it may affect career progression which will in turn affect hourly pay."

If you then look at figures 13b and 14b you see the huge difference between male and female graduates with regarding to economic inactivity due to family/home commitments, or working part time.

But that's your choice, Thatstoast. Equally, he could have been the SAHP, you could have been the breadwinner and you'd be out-earning him. In fact, you could have avoided having children at all, and you'd be earning even more.

I am still a graduate after having children.

I can really go all day on the concept of choice (degree is in philosophy & politics) but let's assume I could have chosen to place all the negative career effects of becoming a parent onto my husband. How is that better? The overall effect on us as a family is the same. Also, how does it help all the other degree educated mothers who earn 22% less than their male counterparts? The problem is still there -
I would still care about it even if it doesn't effect me.

Same problem with not having children, that can't work for everyone. Unless you want a few years of no gender pay gap before the human race dies out. Totally valid choice...

And this is why we need that lib fem board.
Seriously - you read a report about the gender pay gap (though in this case its actually the parent pay gap) and your first thought is to attack transwomen?

how exactly is that going to smash the patriarchy?

I doubt you'd consider me a libfem, Mrs McG, and I don't think the OP should've mentioned trans in connection to this either!

And actually the work that was done by coalition govt on shared parental leave and flexible working to start to address the gender pay gap was informed by Lib Dem policy working groups. And they got evidence from trans women who had seen a reduction in their hourly freelance rates when they transitioned.