The latest Graduate Outcomes Survey for 2025 reveals that female university graduates in Australia earn a median full-time salary of $75,300, compared to $79,000 for their male counterparts — a 4.7% gap that emerges even before family formation and caregiving responsibilities typically begin.
Within-Field Disparities Persist
The survey, conducted by the Australian National University's Social Research Centre, examines job outcomes and starting salaries four to six months after graduation. While the overall gender pay gap among new graduates is narrower than the national average of 11.5%, it has not improved over the past decade, averaging 3.9%.
Gender differences in subject choice cannot fully explain the gap. Even within the same field of study, starting salary gaps exist in 14 of 19 fields with complete data. Architecture and built environment recorded the largest gap at 8.6%, followed by law and paralegal studies (7.2%), and science and mathematics (6.8%). In female-dominated fields like nursing and teaching, women still earn less: nursing graduates face a 2.6% gap, while teacher education graduates face a 3.7% gap.
Fields where women earn more than men, such as communications and creative arts, are generally lower-paid. Psychology is an exception, with women starting at a higher median salary than men and not among the lowest-paid fields.
Possible Explanations for the Gap
The report attributes within-field gaps to differences in skillset breadth, career progression, job switching, life-stage impacts, and personal preferences. However, more complex factors including gender bias may also be at play.
1. Pay Negotiations: Research suggests that gender differences in pay negotiations are not straightforward. Encouraging women to negotiate more aggressively can backfire due to social norms that penalize female assertiveness.
2. Less Opportunity: A Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) analysis found that discretionary payments such as bonuses and overtime contribute significantly to the total remuneration gap. Women are less likely to be offered challenging projects that lead to these rewards, sometimes due to well-meaning managers' 'benevolent sexism' or anticipatory 'maybe baby' bias.
3. More Flexibility: Female graduates may trade higher pay for greater job flexibility, but Nobel Laureate economist Claudia Goldin argues that 'greedy jobs' demanding long hours and on-call availability reward those without caregiving responsibilities, perpetuating gender segregation and pay gaps.
What Can Be Done
Evidence-based research points to the role of organizations in addressing gender biases. All Australian employers with 100 or more staff are required to report gender pay gaps to WGEA. The agency encourages like-for-like analyses comparing pay and project opportunities at graduate level to ensure equal footing for women entering the workforce.
