Report Finds a Gender Wage Gap Among Recent Graduates of Florida’s Public Universities

The board of governors of the State University System of Florida has released a new report showing the employment rates and earnings of recent graduates of its member institutions. The student found that 92 percent of graduates were employed within one year of completing their bachelor’s degrees and 72 percent worked in full-time jobs. And the medium earnings of graduates working full-time was $39,100, up from $36,300 in a similar report released a year ago.

But all the news was not good. The report found that the median earnings of women graduates with full-time jobs was $37,000. This was $5,500 less than the median earnings of male graduates who were employed full-time. Women made up about 60 percent of all students who earned bachelor’s degrees at member institutions.

The report stated that a major reason for the gender wage gap is what it called “occupational segregation.” Men tended to find jobs where wages are generally higher and women were more apt to take jobs in education or office work where the wages tend to be lower.