It confirms the existence of gaps between men and women in the Australian graduate labour market and identifies a number of likely causes of their persistence over time. Our main findings suggest that compared to men, women take more time to find full-time employment after graduating with a tertiary qualification and more time to achieve important benchmarks in the labour market such as finding permanent jobs, finding jobs that match their area of tertiary training, achieving above-average earnings and feeling secure in the job that they currently have. Our results make great practical sense and are consistent with those in the labour economics literature. We nonetheless advise caution in interpreting these results.
Our results imply that traditional gender roles that oblige women to take on a greater share of unpaid and care work in the typical family home hold women back from achieving employment outcomes that are at least on par with men and from maximising their investment in human capital. Education expansion is a step in the right direction, but the data seems to show that expanding education alone is not enough to address the persistence of these gaps. A realignment of gender roles and perceptions in all corners of society – in the home, in schools and in workplaces – is needed to consolidate gains on the education front. In terms of policy, our results imply that a package of structural reforms in the labour market may be needed to complement education initiatives. We suggest that these reforms can be designed with a view to eliminate bias against women, including perceptions of lower productivity compared to men due to more family ‘caring’ duties in particular times of the life cycle.
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