More women entering financial industry

However, new data also indicates that there’s a gender gap in pay

More women entering financial industry
New industry research indicates that women are representing a bigger percentage of graduates working in global financial services.

Based on data collected for the Financial Times’ 2017 ranking of masters in finance programs, women compose 42% of students enrolled in masters of finance programs, a 3% rise compared to where it was six years ago when the rankings began.

The proportion of female graduate students in finance is low when compared to the 48% observed in masters of management programs, but favourable relative to the 35% in MBA programs.

Comparing the salaries of male and female graduates three years after finishing their course reveals a gap of 22%, with male graduates getting an average of US$90,000 compared to US$73,000 for female graduates. The gap was 17% when salary numbers were first collected and compared between the two groups.

The disparity might be explained by a difference in sub-specializations. Roughly 33% of men work in the best-paying fields in the financial industry: private equity or venture capital, investment banking or mergers and acquisitions, and hedge funds. For woman, the percentage is just 19%.

The numbers also indicate that those who land a job through an internship may have an edge. Interns who accepted a job offer tended to have higher salaries than those who got an offer but refused it. Interns who got no job offers had even lower salaries. The gaps between these groups widened three years after graduation.

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