May 2005

 

 

The gap between the average salary of men and women with postgraduate degrees has widened to nearly $20,000. This $7,000 inequity increase from 2001 was uncovered by the Graduate Destinations Report recently released by the NZ Vice-Chancellors’ Committee.

 

Postgraduate-qualified men in Commerce and Business earned over $31,000 more than women within the same field, with the same postgraduate level of qualifications, the same status of being in full-time work, and the same average age. 

 

Rod Bryant, the report’s editor, was quick to point out that men’s response to the survey was smaller than usual, which could have distorted results in the small pool of respondents with postgraduate qualifications. However, he noted that the Commerce and Business result was the most statistically sound comparison, as it had a large number of responses and less variation in the kinds of qualifications surveyed. 380 postgraduate-qualified men responded to the survey out of a possible 1119 (34%) compared with 619 women out of a possible 1351 (46%).