Women university students expect to earn less than men when they enter workforce
Posted May 19, 2011 12:28 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new study finds Canadian women who are about to enter the workforce expect to earn less than men.
Researchers at three Canadian universities surveyed more than 23,000 university students and found women expect to earn smaller paycheques and wait longer for promotions than men.
University of Guelph researcher Sean Lyons says female students estimate their starting salaries will be 14 per cent less than what the men students forecast. After five years on the job, that gap widens to 18 per cent.
The women also expect to wait close to two months longer than men to get their first promotion.
Lyons says the women — who are part of the so-called “millennial generation” — are more realistic about their salary expectations than men.
Researchers also found women are more likely to want to balance their personal life with their careers while men prefer climbing the corporate ladder.
A 2008 Canadian Labour Force Survey found university-educated women earned only 68 per cent of the salaries of equally qualified men.
The study, which also involved researchers from Carleton University and Dalhousie University, will be published in the journal Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations.
