Women now far outnumber men when it comes to completing a Bachelor Degree, with 31 per cent now possessing one compared with 26% of men.
Still, the pay gap persists — and starts earlier than many of us think, often well before factoring caring and domestic responsibilities into the equation.
Indeed, the gender pay gap starts at graduation.
That’s according to the Gender Indicators, released by the ABS this week, which combines a wide range of data on various aspects of life including economic security, education, health, safety and justice, democracy, governance and citizenship.
The ABS data reveals that the median starting wage for a female graduate is $56,000, compared with $60,000 for men.
So from graduation women are earning less, a gap that will widen with age, and widen especially for women who go on to have children and take career breaks.
The ABS figures on unpaid work are also telling.
Women are twice as likely as men to be providing primary care to a person with a disability: of those, more than half are not in the labour force.
Women are spending an average two hours and 52 minutes on domestic work a day, and 59 minutes on childcare.
That’s almost twice as much as men, spending an average one hour and 37 minutes on domestic duties, and 22 minutes on caring for kids.
A massive 95% of all primary parental care leave across non-public sector employees is being taken by women.
Women aged 24 to 44 are two and a half times more likely to not be in the paid workforce than their male counterparts.
All of this is particularly problematic when it comes to accumulating superannuation — with women already retiring with less than half the savings of men.
That $4000 you’re missing out on at graduation? Could go a long way later on in supporting you during the four extra years women on average live longer than men (84.5 compared to 80.5).