For the first time in ten years, the gender pay gap has flipped — at least for Gen Zs. According to a recent report, Gen Z women are out-earning their male peers by £2,200 (approx. AUD $4,600) per annum. And while it might sound like a re-adjustment after the entire history of the gender pay gap, some people are raising the alarm bells, warning it could be one of the clearest signs of a recession indicator (as if the Labubus weren’t enough).
So what does this mean for the UK? And could we see something similar in Australia?
What did the report reveal?
Wes Streeting, the UK’s Health Secretary, has called the findings a ‘crisis in masculinity’. (Image Credit: iStock)
The report, from the Centre for Social Justice titled ‘Lost Boys‘, took a deep dive into young men’s mental health. Researchers interviewed youth workers, teachers, charities, and parents who shared their perspectives on how young men are coping in their day-to-day lives.
The big reveal from the report was that Gen Z women aged 16-24 were outearning their male peers by £2,200 ($4,607.87 approx AUD). The report credits this to women in recent years, who have far outpaced men in education and workplace skills.
One of the other major findings was a 40 per cent increase in the number of men aged 16 to 24 who are ‘NEET’ (not in education, employment, or training) between 2020 and 2024. Now, this isn’t because a large portion of men have decided to give up on a career to become full-time gooners. A variety of factors are at play here, most notably the shrinking of labour jobs in the UK and a growing disillusionment with the education system.
The CSJ’s report showed that boys start falling behind in school compared to girls as early as five years old. According to the report, girls are averaging a grade and a half higher than boys. Men are also twice as likely to be excluded from school through suspensions or expulsions.
Luke Taylor, a researcher at the CSJ put it best, albeit harshly, when he told The Independent, “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.”
Does Australia share the same problem?
Netflix’s Heartbreak High was a modern look at how women struggle with the Australian high school environment. (Image Credit: Heartbreak High / Netflix)
You might wanna sit down before I tell you this, but Australia (like most nations) has historically had a gender pay gap issue.
Women are underrepresented in high-paying roles, are paid less for the same roles as men, and suffer from stronger barriers to career progression — and that’s before you get into the issue of feminised workforces historically being undervalued and underpaid.
To give credit where it’s due, as of 2025, the Australian gender pay gap has reached a record low of 11.5 per cent (the global average is 17 per cent). The Australian Bureau of Statistics chalks this up to reforms surrounding the banning of pay secrecy clauses, targeting pay rises in female-dominating sectors (like aged care and childcare) and enforcing transparent pay gap reporting. However, of course, there’s still work to be done.
In saying that, while no official reports like CSJ’s have confirmed whether Australia is on the same path as the UK, some experts suggest that it’s incredibly likely.
Roxanne Calder, a professional career advisor and author of Earning Power: Breaking Barriers and Building Wealth for Women, told PEDESTRIAN.TV that the gender pay gap reversing isn’t really surprising to anyone who’s been paying attention.
“We’re seeing similar patterns with young, educated women, especially in urban centres, coming in, earning well when they start off, but then by their 30s, same as the UK, that whole gap widens sharply”, said Calder.
One area Calder suggested to potentially help men in both school and the workplace is teaching better communication skills. “Young men struggle with communication [and] the emotional intelligence that goes with that. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s not supported in the development levels, but I see it as part of the workforce. It’s in these areas that I feel women have been able to get ahead.”
As of 2023, 51.6 per cent of Australian young women held a bachelor’s degree, compared to 38.4 per cent of men. Calder further stated that if Australia wants to avoid the UK’s trajectory, it must take action to reform its education and workplace policies.
“We need deeper structural changes, not just feel-good policies. Because the feel-good superficial policies, [only] swipe and touch the surface — they don’t actually have any impact normalising men taking parental leave, or creating flexible work models that don’t punish ambition,” said Calder. “We also need to change how we define leadership so it’s not based on who’s in the office, presenteeism or burnout.”
So how do we fix these problems?
That, my friends, is the million dollar question.
When it comes to young men being paid less than young women, the CSJ says this begins with an early developmental lag in boys, which only exacerbates as they age. Because boys consistently underperform compared to women, this has led to lower university attendance rates among men.
Could more positive representations of masculinity be the answer? The CSJ certainly thinks so, saying more positive representations across schools, media and at home can reduce feelings of isolation and male suicide rates. To put it simply: for every Joe Goldberg, you need a Bob Belcher to show that men can be supportive and emotionally present.
“The number of young men in prison rising and nearly two thirds of young men listening to influencers offering the wrong messages about what it is to be a man,” Nick Isles, director of the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys, said. “This is some doom loop. And all this against the drip feed of the idea that to be a male is to be toxic, innately dangerous, imminently harmful.”
It’s tough to know if this ringing of alarm bells will do much to bring schools and businesses to the table and reconsider gender-specific reform. But as someone who discovered the very upsetting and not cool rhetoric of Andrew Tate, and can see people in my life starting down the David Goggins pipeline, I really hope it’s sooner rather than later.
Image credit: iStock
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