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Gender pay gap is perpetuated by teenage girls who want jobs that pay less, study finds

The gender pay gap is perpetuated by teenage girls who want jobs that pay less, a major study has found  - PA
The gender pay gap is perpetuated by teenage girls who want jobs that pay less, a major study has found - PA

The gender pay gap is perpetuated by teenage girls who want jobs that pay less, a major study has found.

While teenage girls have higher aspirations than boys to attend university, their male counterparts tend to aspire towards professions with bigger salaries, according to research by University College London (UCL)’s Institute for Education.

Professor Lucinda Platt, one of the authors of the study co-author, said that the findings highlight the “importance of recognising the role of both boys’ and girls’ choices in perpetuating labour market inequalities”.

She added that teenagers should be “encouraged and supported to think beyond gender stereotypes” and consider a full range of future career options.

On average, girls thought they had a 71 per cent chance of going to university, and 14 per cent of girls were certain they would go, researchers found.

For girls, the most popular jobs that they said they aspired to was the medical profession - Credit:  Andrew Brookes
For girls, the most popular jobs that they said they aspired to was the medical profession Credit: Andrew Brookes

Meanwhile, the average expectation of boys was 63 per cent, and just under 10 per cent were convinced they would get to university.

When asked about their ideal job, the average hourly wage for the occupations that girls aspired to was 27 per cent or £6.49 lower than boys.

The research team analysed data collected from over 7,700 teenagers in the UK who are all part of the Millennium Cohort Study, a study which has followed their lives since they were born at the turn of the century.

When they were 14, the teenagers were asked a series of questions to find out their future aspirations. While the most popular jobs for both boys and girls included some highly-paid careers, the pay among the jobs girls aspired to was, on average, much lower.

For teenage boys, the most popular job is a professional sportsman - Credit: Brendan Moran
For teenage boys, the most popular job is a professional sportsman Credit: Brendan Moran

This remained the case even after excluding from the calculations aspirations among a number of the boys to be highly-paid professional sportsmen.

For girls, the most popular jobs that they said they aspired to were the medical profession, a secondary school teacher, a singer, the legal profession, a vet, a nurse and a midwife.

For boys, it was a professional sportsman, a software developer, an engineer, the army, an architect and a secondary school teacher.

Both genders tended to favour jobs where the workforce was dominated by their own sex. Boys chose occupations with an average workforce that is 74 per cent male, while girls chose jobs where women make up 59 per cent of the workforce.

Dr Sam Parsons, a co-author, said he was surprised to find such “gendered differences” in young people’s aspirations. He said: “Despite aiming high academically and professionally, girls still appear to be aiming for less well-paid jobs.”