A young woman graduating from university should be starting her career on a level playing field with her male colleagues.

However, the latest data collected in Australia’s Graduates Outcome Survey for 2025, released last week, show this still isn’t the case.

The survey, run by the Australian National University’s Social Research Centre, looks at the job outcomes and starting salaries of fresh graduates four to six months after finishing their studies.

Results showed newly minted female undergraduates are starting their professional careers on a median full-time annual salary of $75,300, compared with their male colleagues on $79,000.

That’s a 4.7% gap, even before the impacts of family formation and caregiving have kicked in.

On top of this, women even start on lower salaries than their male counterparts in some female-concentrated industries such as nursing and teaching.

A smaller gap but a big issue

The gender pay gap among new university graduates is narrower than Australia’s workforce-wide gender pay gap of 11.5%. However, the workforce-wide gap has generally been shrinking over the past ten years. In contrast, the gender gap in graduates’ starting salaries shows no overall improvement, averaging 3.9% over the past decade.

This disparity can’t be blamed on women working part-time, as these comparisons are based on full-time salaries.

So can it be explained by gender differences in subject choices, with women choosing fields of study that lead to lower-paying professions?

It’s a fair question, given 2021 research shows hourly wage rates in female-concentrated occupations are 9.9% lower than in male-concentrated ones.

But the data suggest........

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