Gender Discrimination in the Australian Graduate Labour Market

This paper examines gender discrimination in the Australian graduate labour market, using data from the Graduate Destination Surveys 1999-2009. A framework of analysis provided by the overeducation/required education/undereducation literature is applied. A smaller gender wage gap is found for univer...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Li, Ian, Miller, Paul
Format: Journal Article
Published: The Centre for Labour Market Research, Curtin Business School, Curtin University of Technology 2012
Online Access:http://ftp.iza.org/dp6595.pdf
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/33589
Description
Summary:This paper examines gender discrimination in the Australian graduate labour market, using data from the Graduate Destination Surveys 1999-2009. A framework of analysis provided by the overeducation/required education/undereducation literature is applied. A smaller gender wage gap is found for university graduates than that reported for all workers in earlier studies. It is shown, however, that the gender wage gap widens with the age at graduation. This pattern is argued to reflect the influence of the mismeasurement of actual labour market experience in the conventional education and experience earnings equation on the standardised gender pay gap. Female graduates are less likely to be overeducated, compared to male graduates. Overeducation, while associated with substantial penalties, is not a substantial contributor to the gender wage gap.