Pay disparities between male and female university graduates in Australia: Rethinking the role of fields of study

Abstract

Despite recent progress, gender pay gaps between men and women remain a persistent feature of modern labour markets, being observed even amongst highly skilled population groups—such as university graduates. These gaps are the product of multiple interrelated factors—including discrimination, imbalanced family responsibilities and educational and labour‐market segmentation, yet some of these factors have been examined more than others. This study offers a comprehensive examination of gender pay gaps amongst university graduates in Australia, focusing on one under‐researched contributor: fields of study and their feminisation rates. Leveraging rich and robust population‐level administrative data from the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA) ( n  = 549,893 graduates) and multilevel regression models, we first revisit key mechanisms underpinning the graduate gender pay gap within the Australian context. We then deploy this unique dataset to offer novel empirical contributions to the international literature—including the mediating and moderating effect of field of study in the relationship between gender and earnings, and their interaction with occupational gender segregation. Our results offer evidence of a substantial graduate gender pay gap in Australia, amounting to ∼17% of annual average salaries among men. While standard socio‐demographic factors fail to explain this gap, gendered differences in fields of study account for ∼14% of it. Importantly, the magnitude of the graduate gender pay gap differs markedly by field of study (from ∼2% to ∼24% of average pay), being largest amongst graduates from gender‐balanced fields. These findings bear important implications for equity policy and practice pertaining to both higher education and the labour market.

Rationale for this study: Despite women's growing educational attainment, gender pay gaps amongst university graduates persist. Existing research has paid limited attention to the contributing role of field of study.

Why the new findings matter: This study uncovers substantial variation in gender pay gaps across fields of study, providing novel evidence that disparities are largest in gender‐balanced fields.

Implications for researchers, policymakers and practitioners: For researchers, our findings underscore the importance of considering detailed field‐of‐study measures and feminisation indicators in analyses of gender pay inequality. For practitioners and policymakers, the findings suggest that interventions aimed solely at altering gendered educational choices may have limited effects unless they are accompanied by efforts to address pay‐setting mechanisms and within‐field inequalities.