New research suggests that female students’ subject selection in high school may lead to an increased gender wage gap later in life.
According to an analysis of Victorian pupils, female students are less likely to elect STEM subjects such as IT, physics, and specialist maths. The report also found that girls performing at the same level as male students are still likely to move from physical to life sciences in later years.
“We found girls simply aren’t doing the subjects required in order to launch a career in the highly-paid engineering or IT industries,” University of Melbourne researcher Susan Mendez told Nine News.
Women are consistently under-represented in executive roles within engineering and IT, and over-represented in fields such as nursing and child care. The former offer higher levels of pay, further increasing the wage gap between men and women in Australia.
This story was original covered by Nine Network News. You can read the full article by clicking here.
