London
Fewer women graduating from Britain’s top universities gain graduate-level jobs than their male peers, according to research by the University of Oxford.
Using data on the destination of leavers compiled by the Higher Education Statistics Agency in 2013, researchers found 76 per cent of women leave Oxford for a graduate-level job, compared with 84 per cent of men. In science subjects the gap grows to 13 points.
This disparity was mirrored at other universities. At the University of Bristol, according to the survey, 37 per cent of female graduates took non-graduate level jobs (excluding postgraduate study), compared with 23 per cent of male graduates. At the London School of Economics, it was 31 per cent of female graduates, versus 17 per cent male.
The proportion of female graduates in non-professional level employment — jobs that do not demand a degree — was 36 per cent, compared with 30 per cent of men in 2012-13, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
There is also disparity in pay. The average salary for 2012-13 graduates working in the UK six months after graduation was £21,536 (Dh131,197) for men compared with £19,533 pounds for women.
Jonathan Black, director of Oxford university’s career service, found male undergraduates tended to focus on careers earlier in their university education, approaching employers and the careers service. Women preferred to concentrate on their academic and extra-curricular life.
Anecdotally, he says, women say they are “less confident approaching employers and feel that companies won’t be interested in them”. Male undergraduates, he believes, are less likely to be deterred by lack of corporate experience. “I hear women say: ‘There will be other people better than me’”.
Charlie Ball, deputy director of research at the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, says that while women are more likely to take non-graduate jobs, they are also more likely to go into full-time and part-time employment than men, who prefer to remain out of the job market until they get an offer they feel is worthwhile.
Ball also reports — also anecdotally — that women are taking jobs such as nursery workers and teaching assistants that are not classed as graduate-level but increasingly require degrees.
To try to understand the gender differences, Mr Black piloted a survey of 700 sixth-form pupils. The research found that a higher proportion of sixth-form boys said they had a clear idea of their future careers than girls.
Concerned that fewer female graduates go into graduate-level jobs than their male peers, Oxford university is running three- and one-day professional programmes for women to boost their confidence. Georgina Pullen, a senior training consultant on Oxford’s Springboard courses, finds assertiveness coaching is one of the areas where women want help. “It makes them realise they have a voice and can assert themselves.”
Financial Times
