Female graduate salaries stall.New figures show the pay gap...

Female graduate salaries stall.

New figures show the pay gap between Australian female university graduates and their male colleagues more than doubled last year.

A report by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) says female graduates are losing the battle for pay equality, with the gap now reaching $5,000, up from $2,000 for the previous year.

The agency's 2012 GradStats report shows men's starting salaries increased over the past year to $55,000, while women's salaries stalled at $50,000.

The gap is highest in architecture and building, with $52,000 compared to $43,000, followed by dentistry, optometry and the law.

WGEA research executive manager Doctor Carla Harris says it is disturbing that women's salaries have stalled in the past year, especially since the majority of university graduates are women.

"The lesson here is that the gender pay gap continues to have a very real impact on the bank balance of young women starting their careers," she said.

"I'm certain that any female school-leaver contemplating a career in dentistry, would be outraged knowing she can expect to earn more than $14,000 less than a man in her first year on the job."

Only seven occupations have women earning more than men, including pharmacy, Earth sciences and computer sciences.

Pharmacy leads the male inequality, with women earning $39,700, or 10.3 per cent more than men.

The report shows men and women earn the same in only three occupations - education, humanities and medicine.

Why are women earning less after leaving university? Join the conversation on Facebook.

The conversation so far on facebook about this topic: Such riveting stuff not!

"It defies belief that straight out uni male graduates in occupations like dentistry get considerably more than female graduates, but unfortunately society still thinks of or anticipates women as being less attached to the workforce (leaving to have children) and thus don't offer them or train them into the best positions with the best salaries."
"Exactly!Just because I have a uterus doesn't mean I'm going to use it, nor does it mean that if I do, I will be the primary caregiver."
"The thing is, regardless of the possibility of a woman leaving for an extended period to have children (which is valuable in itself), men also leave jobs and change careers as it suits them... So the attitude, while outdated, still underlies a general societal paradigm that woman are not as valuable as men."
"At the same time, young women also need to take part in the debate and get in themselves and push for more, rather then sitting back and waiting for 'someone', or the government to fix it for them."
"I think in part that women are more likely to accept what salary is on offer instead of asking for more. That would be part of it too I would have thought.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28246928/the-gender-pay-gap-is-a-complete-myth/"
"Some of you women need to do some research and reading and not believe the feminist spin that is put on many of these so called "reports". The above article is a start, though there are many others I have read over the years that are easily found if you search for them. The media don't widely report the facts because they are not controversial and don't appeal to emotion, so therefore they are less likely to be read by the public, and less likely to make the particular media outlet money."
"Think of it this way, if you were a business owner, and you knew that you could pay women 10-20% less (or whatever the new made up feminist figure is) for the same work as a man, you would hire nothing but women for your workforce and keep the extra money as profit. What incentive would you have for hiring a man if you have to pay him an extra 10-20% for no extra productivity. Do you honestly think most business owners would want to lose money in order to discriminate against women. I would suggest that the urge to succeed and make profit far outweighs any notion of discrimination against women in the workplace, not to mention that a growing number of business owners are women themselves. The free market determines what someone's labour is worth, and it works very well as a mechanism. If people don't want to accept a lower salary than a man at the same job within the same organisation she is free to take her skills elsewhere where she will undoubtedly find an employer who is willing to employ her for what she is worth. Read some Milton Friedman for a great mind who can explain free markets in the most intricate and precise of ways."
"Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics?
AKA the father of the GFC...?"
"Some of you women...?"
"Thanks .... for your riveting input"
"Reville Saw well the maternity leave expenses and all that are a disincentive to hire women."
"Father of the GFC?!?!? Is your tin foil hat at the cleaners? Better strap it back on eh. I'm willing to bet that you've never read even ONE of his books, or watched any of his lectures freely available on You Tube. I am further willing to bet you've watched some hackneyed unintelligable left wing documentary (let me guess - "The Shock Doctrine" - only 'shocking' thing about it was the number of factual errors contained therein) that says how it's all the fault of the neoconservatives etc etc etc blah blah blah. Here's a fact for you, Milton Friedman was a Libertarian, he was not a Republican nor a neoconservative. The father of the GFC was Bill Clinton who pushed through legislation to force mortgage providers to lend money to low income households, with the target being that more people would be able to own homes, with a particular emphasis on poorer groups and minorities. The results have been that these loans were bundled to create the mortgage backed securities that were the basis of the financial collapse and the GFC. In the free market these people would not have taken out loans they could never afford to pay back as the banks (including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) would not have provided them. Milton Friedman had nothing to do with this decision and indeed strongly opposed this kind of government intervention. He was not against the government making laws to prevent financial malpractice and to punish those responsible. The fact that bankers and politicians responsible for the crisis have not been arrested is not his fault."
"good to see you keep the general left winger tenet of not addressing any facts or arguments to the debate, simply poorly worded rhetorical questions, and baseless accusations backed up by a complete and utter lack of evidence or logical deductions. If you want to criticise me or Milton Friedman then go right ahead, the fact is you are either too lazy or ignorant to do either."
"How suprising-another study with the same old worn out argument that the media loves to recycle to cater to its female readership. There are many profesions that are dominated by men, simply becasue women really don't want to work in dangerous conditions ( a coal mine for example). Who do women think they are to demand more pay for jobs where the market determines their value?"
"Equal work for equal pay is a far better way to go than this "all women are victims and its all men's fault nonsense. For every one example of women being discrimniated against I can think of two for men!"
"Yes its not discrimination its based on the hours people work etc NOT GENDER. So shut up FEMINISM."
"Men are seen as more valued? LOL give us a break you leftist feminist idealogues. When people die they always emphasis if its women and children, men are far less valued in society than women, we are seen as beasts of burden or just cash cows. If women did the more arduous or dangerous jobs more often then their wages would increase. The pay gap myth is based on average wages by gender, it doesnt take into consideration hours or comparing exact jobs etc. Female pay gap based on discrimination by society is a MYTH."
"If you could get the same or better work out of females (as they claim) for less money then that would be an INCENTIVE to hire ONLY women. As usual feminists and logic just dont gel."
"they will claim the PATRIARCHY hates women so much that it will forgo profit just to keep women down, LMFAO, oh poor women they are forever victims hahahahaha. RUBBISH"
"In my experience women actually achieve less in the workplace. They spend a lot of time and energy maintaining social balance and relationahips particularly with other women. This is both instinctive and primitive in it's nature. In addition, their menstrual cycle and it's influence upon emotions, pregnancy and instability it is no wonder business opt to employ men" (wow this guy can't spell to save himself).
"The article quotes a report by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). Presumably this is the report -http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GCA-GradStats-2012_FINAL1.pdf"
"This report was actually done by Graduate Careers Australia’s (GCA)."
"It's illegal to discriminate against women in the work place & this is the work place so why are businesses getting away with it - the government needs to step in & rectify - equal pay for an equal job & no illegal gender discrimination"
"This is actually a really interesting discussion topic that has been turned into an abusive and ignorant conversation. Is this what normally happens on FB? The article suggests that women with the same qualifications as men receive a lower income. This could be due to a number of factors - both discriminatory and real. The question is why does this happen? Feminism is as irrelevant as men's ignorant comments. The important point is to understand why. I am an educated woman who has been working in a professional role for almost 25 years and agree that there is certainly discrimination in force in the workplace. However, I also understand the reluctance to hire women approaching the age at which many have kids as it is a huge expense (in many but not all cases). I also believe that by nature, many women are not as agressive and confident as men and don't sell themselves as well. But with the understanding, it doesn't change the fact that the majority of hiring managers and executives are men and many of them are discriminatory. It takes a lot more for a woman to prove herself at work than for a man. Women add just as much value as men at work, but it may not be in the way that traditional men value. Yes, there are some women who are a waste of space at work, just as there are men who are a waste of space. There are also a lot of exceptional women who are undervalue an underpaid - for various reasons. Let's discuss what these reasons are...."
"...., you are worming in the word 'value'. In business, the only important thing is profit (by legislative definition). Otherwise its not a business, its a leftist commune or the ABC."
"A FEDERAL government agency has oversimplified data about graduate pay, resulting in the misrepresentation of gender pay differences, Graduate Careers Australia (GCA) says.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) said the gender pay gap for young university graduates had more than doubled last year, from $2000 to $5000 a year. However, there was in fact no change and the gap remains at three per cent.

GCA policy and strategy adviser Bruce Guthrie said the agency had read data from its annual Australian Graduate Survey in a “overly simplistic” way.

“The researcher in question has missed some vital paragraphs in this fairly short document which would have explained a lot of the stuff we have had to clarify.

“It does happen. It’s happened before, it will happen again with various data sets. People get the wrong handle and think the story is simpler than it actually is,” Mr Guthrie told AAP.

He said a factor that contributed to the misrepresentation was that men tended to be over-represented in fields such as engineering.

“In addition, some of the larger wage gaps are observed in fields with relatively low response numbers, for example dentistry and optometry, which could make them unreliable."

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Source: https://www.facebook.com/Yahoo7Finance; http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/gender-pay-gap-widening-as-female-graduate-salaries-stall-222644291.html