'Symptom of a wider change': Gen Z women in the UK are paid higher than young men - as gender pay gap reverses

4 June 2025, 17:57

Young women in the UK are on average paid slightly higher than their male counterparts - according to a new study.

The findings were released in a report called by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) - The Lost Boys.

For individuals working full-time between the ages of 16 and 24 - the gender pay gap has seemingly reversed.

This means that for most of Gen Z - including those who have just finished university - women on average are paid slightly higher than men.

Read more: More pensioners will receive winter fuel payments

Read more: Subway workers vote to strike in row over pay and working conditions

'Symptom'

However, in later life - this is likely to reverse and widen in favour of men.

This gap is largely due to greater male participation in higher-paying industries.

The gender pay gap also widens due to the "motherhood penalty" - the disproportionate share of childcare undertaken by women.

The paper's authors describe the shift in the wealth of young women and young women as a 'bellwether'.

Luke Taylor, a researcher at the CSJ, told The Independent: “In some ways the gender pay gap is fascinating, but not really the point.

“It’s kind of a symptom of a wider change.”

A lot of this wider change can be attributed to educational underperformance of boys compared to their female counterparts.

It also may be due to the decrease in work for men with lower education levels.

'Hollowing'

Mr Taylor said: "There has been a long-term hollowing out of work in the industrial sector for men with lower education levels.

"And the expectation of that kind of work has very much changed, because there are fewer of these jobs, and now you might need a degree."

Women aged between 20 and 24 across the UK are now slightly more likely to be employed than males.

Meanwhile, the share of young men who are out of education, searching for jobs, and unemployment is rising.

Trends over the last 30 years show women outperform men at GCSE, A-Level and university and receive more first class degrees than men.

However, boys perform better than girls in STEM subjects - science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Women tend to pursue more degrees that lead to lower-paying jobs - including psychology, education, nursing and social work.

Meanwhile, men more often opt for degrees in subjects such as engineering, leading to higher-paid salaries on average.

However, there are now twice as many female applicants to law school than male and almost twice as many female medicine and dentistry graduates - carrying relatively high starting salaries.

Mr Taylor said: “That was sort of confusing to me, because my understanding was that you get more women going to university than men, but they tend to gravitate towards lower-paying fields.

“But they’re actually now far, far more likely to be doing things like medicine and dentistry or things like law as well. And then you get quite a significant number [of] men doing things like PE and political sciences, which are not the most highly paid occupations.”

Boys are nearly twice as likely as their female counterparts to be suspended - and more than twice as likely to be excluded.

According to a parliament research briefing, white British boys on free school meals are the worst-performing demographic.

Mr Taylor said: “When it comes to education, we either need to accept that boys are more stupid or it’s the system setting them up to fail. Whichever one it is, we need to recognise that boys are in need of a bit more support than they’re getting."