in brief: gen y women overtake their male peers

Gen Y women prioritise their future financial security ahead of their male peers, the annual Lifelounge Sweeney Research report shows.

While one in three young men, aged between 16 to 30, acknowledge they like to live in the moment, only one in four women surveyed said they believed their future would eventually take care of itself.

Lifelounge’s findings, based on interviews conducted with 4000 young Australians, were released yesterday.

Of the men surveyed, 39% said they were ‘impatient to have what I want’ compared with half of the report’s female participants who agreed with the statement.

The results echo the findings of a paper released by the Australian Council for Education Research in July earlier this year, which made the observation that women outnumber men in universities and TAFE institutions.

The ACER paper says the gender-specific employment and remuneration disparities in Australia have not improved with more women enrolled in higher education.

‘While women are accessing higher education at a much greater rate than men in Australia, female graduates have lower salaries relative to male graduates. This is particularly marked at higher levels of qualification. This outcome is not a feature of many other developed nations,’ the paper found.

The pay disparity comes despite Lifelounge’s report showing that the women surveyed were more driven, became financially independent at a younger age and read more books than their male peers. Of the women surveyed, 65% were reported to have read a book in the last month compared with 52% of their male Gen Y counterparts.

In an interview with news.com.au, Lifelounge chief executive Dion Appel said young women matured sooner than men.

‘The women at a young age are a little more career-driven and independent,’ he said.