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Male graduates caught in gender employment gap

by 32 Comments

Male graduates are now 60% more likely to end up unemployed six months after graduating than female graduates.

The latest data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reveals that as well as being more likely to attend university, women in all but one subject area are less likely to be out of work once they qualify.

According to HESA, 8% of all 2012/2013 male university leavers whose destinations were known were unemployed, compared with 5% of females. The corresponding figures for 2011/2012 were 9% for men and 6% for women, a gap of 50%. The biggest gender unemployment gap is found amongst graduates who study maths, with men being twice as likely to find themselves without a job.

Men’s increased risk of becoming being unable to find work after graduation is repeated across numerous subjects including: history and philosophy (73% more likely to be unemployed); medicine and dentistry (50%); engineering and technology (42%); creative arts and design (40%); media studies (40%); law (34%); education (28%); business studies (27%); architecture (10%) and computer science (7%).

The only subject area where male graduates buck the trend is agriculture, with women 14% more likely to be jobless once they complete their studies.

Medicine and dentistry are the degrees least likely to lead to unemployment with just 0.2% of male graduates and 0.3% of female graduates being out of work.

At the other end of the employability scale, there are half a dozen subjects where at least one-in-10 male students are not working six months after their university course finishes. These are media studies (12.7% of male graduates are unemployed); maths (10.8%); creative arts and design (10.8%), history and philosophy (10.4%): social studies (10.2%) and languages  (10.1%) and physical sciences (10%).

Why do you think male graduates are more likely to be unemployed than their female counterparts? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject so if you have a theory then please leave a comment below this article.

—Photo Credit: flickr/bensonk42

  • http://www.anagramtherapies.com Anne Dyster

    Even in this day and age there is a tendency to pay women less than men for the same job. If women are “cheaper” they are more likely to be employed.
    It has been scientifically proven that women are better at multi-tasking.
    Women can use their gender to their advantage at interviews.
    Employees are cautious about being accused of sexism.

    • Inside MAN

      Thanks for those three interesting points. We haven’t seen any evidence that female graduates are paid less for the same job. The point about interview skills has been suggested elsewhere and is an interesting hypothesis as is the suggestion that some employers may favour women for fear of being accused if sexism. Thanks for your thoughts.

    • Joe Wilson

      Actually statistics indicate that female graduates earn slightly more than males.

      • Inside MAN

        Thanks Joe, the HESA statistics for the UK that show more male graduates are unemployed also show that male graduates earn slightly more on average. If you have statistics that show otherwise we’d love to see them. Thank You

    • Political Cynic

      Actually that assertin is inaccurate on multiple fronts.

      First, the “gender pay gap” has been repeatedly debunked-if you compare job to job rather than “lifetime median earnings” to “lifetime median earnings”. Further, several studies (at least in the US) show that women just out of college are OUT-earning their male counterparts.

      So if in fact we paid women less for “the same job” we would see NO men with jobs and ALL jobs dominated by women-because what rational employer would pay MORE for an employee if they could avoid it? Business is PROFIT driven.

      Trying to claim “men are unemployed because of sexism against women” is a CLASSIC problem with feminists-NARCISSISM.

    • John Narayan

      “It has been scientifically proven that women are better at multi-tasking.”

      Rubbish.

    • Aimee McGee

      Anne, don’t use words like “proven” without a citation regarding things like women’s vs. men’s skills. Its just plain sloppy and doesn’t give credit to our gender.
      As for the cost – being an employer myself, I find women far more costly to employ at graduate level than men. Why? Because they are far more likely to need to go off in maternity leave after I have invested 2-5 years of organisational training in them. But I am sure that if you can find written evidence that contradicts my individual experience, then I would be delighted to see it.

    • phaidros52

      BS, where is the “scientific” proof of the facts? The only true thing you say is this: “Women can use their gender to their advantage” and to get jobs with lesser qualification because they dont have a penis.

    • Andrejovich Dietrich

      OK…You truly do drink the Feminist Koolaid. Point number 1) The Practice you are describing has been illegal since 1974. 2) If you had ever worked as a hiring manager you will experience HR (Predominantly women BTW) who will encourage preferential treatment be paid to female candidates. Further, in order to get by the EEOC who monitors workplace inequalities, will also encourage their starting salaries be in the top 2/3 of the Pay Grade range. Whereas the standard known practice for hiring men into the same position is to put them in the low 1/3 of that same pay grade. 3) In the 2007 Department of Labor report on this topic. Page 1 states in no uncertain terms that the alleged wage gap has dishonesty behind it.

    • http://www.menbeproud.org Robert Brockway

      The idea that women can multi-task better than men is nonsense. The actual research shows that no one multi-tasks very well and that anyone who tries suffers a performance dip. This myth won’t go away.

  • Daniel Dewey

    Interesting article. I think it’s because men in general have much of their competitive drive removed by the current education system. It makes female graduates who are more complete and sure of themselves than male graduates. That is an important air to have in the interview process.

    There is a dearth of support groups, assistance, and tailoring to men throughout education and government, and I think that shows when all else is held equal.

    I do also think the fear of sexism/discrimination accusations is a real thing.

    • Inside MAN

      Thanks Daniel, really interesting to hear your take on what happens to boys/men compared to girls/women in the education system—-what’s most staggering about this story is that it simply doesn’t appear to be one anyone’s radar so your point about the dearth of support groups etc is spot on —- where are the advocates looking out for young men in education an flagging up that this is a problem that needs to be addressed?

      Thanks for taking time to comment.

      • Wilma

        As a retired HR professional my experience is that employers are very frightened of accusations of sexism against women and hire accordingly. The great volume of media highlighting women as needing a leg up to address (imagined) past discrimination.

        Women are promoted faster than men as well and reach more senior positions at younger ages, for the same reasons as above.

        I haven’t witnessed any of the discrimination that has been in the mainstream narrative during my career, but have instead witnessed active discrimination against men in a number of industries.

        Even though women are more expensive employees overall, they are hired and promoted. Employment is more competitive for males.

        Men cost less to hire, although they will negotiate for the highest possible salaries, their female peers seek more expensive benefits and perks, more time off, greater health benefit plans, etc. Including women without children.

        When conducting focus groups with employees women always focused on paid time off and benefits, the men on base salaries and bonuses.

        So my conclusion is that there is real discrimination against men.

        • phaidros52

          thank you

          • Wilma

            You’re very welcome.

            Also, on workforce planning, it is discussed very openly that when labour is scare or even perceived as scare, salaries go too high, recruitment takes place world wide and resultant high costs turnover.

            The solution to, this is to increase the pipeline with more women and immigrants. That is exactly how this issue is presented with some idealistic materials about how it’s the right thing to do, women “multi-task” etc. this is the supporting PR.

            This PR is coordinated through conferences and business meetings world wide CEO meetings, boards of trade etc.

            For example, Many reports are produced to show how scarce engineers are. Then scholarships and I migrations targets are developed to increase the engineering pipeline. The engineers have figured it out after more than a decade:

            http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth

      • Christopher

        The dearth of male support groups and programs that address men’s issues on college and university campus is due to the hostile reception that comes with merely suggesting the formation of a program or support group. Their is a tangible hostility toward men forming men’s organizations on campus due to fear, fear that these groups and/or organizations will be “Men’s Clubs” promoting misogyny.

        In regards to employers hiring more women vs men to avoid being labeled sexist, this is absolutely true. As a manager, I hire technical staff for my development groups. Other managers hire more women then men due to affirmative action and pressure from human resources.

        The employees I hire are hired based on their skill set, background, and education, not their gender. I have been pushed to hire more women for my groups despite the fact that the current gender compositions of my groups are 60% female, 40% male.

        If you want to know why more women are hired then men at companies, take a look at the politics, personal beliefs, and background of the people who staff human resource departments. You will have your answer, it won’t be politically correct nor supporting of the claim that women are discriminated against in the hiring process due to their gender.

        • Wilma

          “If you want to know why more women are hired then men at companies, take a look at the politics, personal beliefs, and background of the people who staff human resource departments.”

          This is true, many HR staff are true believers in the feminist threat narrative and police the rest. However the real power comes from above and there always a profit motive whether personal or organizationally. HR staff also see the worst of human behaviour including negative female behaviours. Many aren’t that naive they have other motives.

          So much of the focus on women is to keep salaries down through the threat of competition. Men aren’t YET very comfortable with competing with women. Women play up their sexual characturistics in the workplace to gain an advantage. Their goals are not the same as men. Get to a senior a position as soon as possible, have children, work part time at higher pay or not at all. This is so consistant that the exceptions stick out like sore thumbs.

          Men still try to help fund this individually and some in a collective socialistic manner.

          If this means a glut of talent that is the whole point. They need a constant pipeline because those female staff still want babies and despite 50 years of putting down housewifery and child minding by biological parents, women still choose to have babies if they can manage it and then work part time or not at all. This is of such concern you can find conferences where sociologists try to figure out how to get children away from biological parents at an earlier age. Boards of trade try to get governments to start up state child care from age six months. Cradle to work!

          Watch the news for how the “war for talent” is sold.

      • Paul Johnson

        Getting shouted down by feminists.

    • Wilma

      “There is a dearth of support groups, assistance, and tailoring to men throughout education and government, and I think that shows when all else is held equal.”

      I always ask the question “what is being purchased” with women only support? It isn’t believable that money is spent just because of male hatred. Just as important is the propaganda to actively discourage and malign young men and boys.

      I believe you must look at the history behind modern schooling to even begin to understand some of the forces that govern these projects. There is a concerted effort to demoralize young men and boys. The only person I know of who has tracked this history thoroughly is John Taylor Gatto. The same policy thinkers who cooked up modern schooling created modern HR.
      http://johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm

  • malcolm

    It’s because boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.

    • Christopher

      Yea, Parents STILL buy those t-shirts for their girls. Just mind boggling….

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  • Bill Paxton

    Affirmative Action Policy

  • Wilma

    “take a look at the politics, personal beliefs, and background of the people who staff human resource departments.”

    Also take a look at the executives. HR staff women or men will be fired if they fail to implement the goals of executive staff. I have seen male executives create networks of female staff to help feminize the company. They get good press and awards from women’s groups.

  • KW

    Honestly? Sexism. I went to a business school for an accounting certificate program(was cheaper than as associates and was purely meat based, only programs I needed in order to learn accounting and book keeping). My resume got me a whole bunch of phone calls and interviews. One from a staffing agency saying that he would find me a job and couldn’t understand why I had difficulty finding a job in the field, until I picked up the phone and said that I was XXX(my name is more often then not a gals name). After he realized that the person in question was male, I got the ****** treatment. His voice went form nice to cold like the flip of a light switch.

    Other HR guys where cold too. Even had this one HR guy hang up on me. The gal’s really aren’t much better. They are just as sexist but in a different way. From their point of view it seems they wanted to keep their office female only. If you look at the Wilksbarre Salli Mae office, almost all the managers are women, and surprise surprise, the entire staff, aside from a token man in each department is female.

    I remember this one furniture outlet I interviewed at, made it to round two of interviews, in the end they decided to go with (SOMEONE) who had no accounting/book keeping experience at all, but had “retail experience”(I worked as a Night Auditor for over 5 years in addition to my accounting and book keeping training).

    I interviewed on two different occasions for a Cold Storage data entry job, and the old SOB doing the interview kept trying to talk me out of the job.

    If you travel to Luzerne County PA, try and poke your head into any office in the county and the office might have a man as a manager sometimes, but almost always the entire staff is female only, or sometimes they let effeminate/gay men into their girls only club.

    Honestly, I have given up. I told the business school I went to, to stop sending my resume out because I couldn’t handle it anymore. The worst part of it is, I tried filling out job applications for simple unloader type jobs at stores and stuff(positions that don’t require alot of training since I would be a short term employee) and they won’t even bother to call me for an interview because I have a gal’s first name, and my work history since 2005 has been clerical.

    Writing this makes me want to go somewhere and cry for awhile that is how frustrating it is. I know of men who have a bachelors in accounting and have the same problem. It is basically you need a bachelors to compete against women who have no training at all, and if the gal has an associates or a bachelors degree, your totally SOL. Because if you go for a CPA your “overqualified”.

    I racked up over 20 grand in debt, for skill sets that are utterly worthless to me because of my gender. It doesn’t matter how skilled I am. I showed managers/HR people stuff I made up to help relatives that where self employed, and would get the “that looks like a good idea I need to start doing that”, when in the end they went with a gal.

    Like I said, I have given up. After a year of humiliation and despair I simply cannot stand dealing with the bigotry.

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  • Nigel

    Riach, Peter A and Judith Rich (1987), “Testing for Sexual Discrimination in the Labour Market”, Australian Economic Papers, 26: 165-178.

    Riach, Peter A and Judith Rich (2006), “An Experimental Investigation of Sexual Discrimination in Hiring in the English Labour Market”, BE Press Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy, 6(2): Article 1.

    There are surprisingly few studies . These confirm the general point that female preferencing is much stronger.

  • Darren Ball

    I’m finding all of this extremely depressing. I don’t have any data but I offer the following thoughts.

    We have all been told again-and-again that women are disadvantaged in the workplace, and this has entered our conciousness as fact. Anybody who doubts this is likely to be scoffed at.

    I’m regularly scoffed at by people who don’t have a single statistic to hand. It’s just one of those things that everybody “knows” is true. If you tell them that there’s no pay gap for full-time workers under 40 (median hourly pay), they’re certain that you’re mistaken or lying.

    Fair-minded people want to compensate for the “disadvantaged” young women by discriminating in their favour every time they get the chance. They’re certain that in general the young men will be fine because most other people will be discriminating in their favour. Whereas in fact, most people are thinking just like they are.

    Also, organisations can only bring gender balance to male-dominated industries via new recruits or selective redundancies. Even if all new recruits were women, some organisations (especially in engineering and physics) could take years to bring about equal numbers. It’s very unfair to balance a workforce that embraces three generations by focusing on the the current generation of graduates and young men.

    I fear that the problems for young men will continue to get worse until a liberal of unassailable integrity blows the whistle on the lies that are perpetuated as immutable facts. It would need to be somebody like Jon Snow or Jon Stewart.

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  • Tammly

    I graduated in the 70’s when equality was less of an issue, but I found discrimination against males was very common. I worked first in a national museum where I observed that a good many vacancies were closed to male applicants (often very superior ones) because the incumbent males saw younger men as more of a threat to their authority and they also preferred the more decorative traits of an attractive younger woman.