KEY POINTS:
The earnings gap between men and women a year after they leave study is wider than it was five years ago.
Figures published by Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) yesterday show that last year men received an average annual income of $31,560 after they had left study in 2006.
That was almost 13 per cent more than female leavers, whose average income was $27,910.
Men who left study in 2002 received an income 6 per cent higher than women in the year after leaving study - $26,160 and $24,620 respectively.
Five years later in 2007, with male income up 49 per cent to $39,060 and female income up 33 per cent to $32,680, that gap had increased to 20 per cent, SNZ said.
The trend was consistent across all fields of study, levels and providers. The difference became more pronounced last year because the average female income five years after leaving study slipped from 2006, while male income increased 2.4 per cent.
University leavers earned considerably more than other students, with those leaving university in 2006 receiving an average income in 2007 of $35,980 - $37,240 for men, $35,090 for women. The university total average was 22 per cent higher than the average for all students.
By 2007 men who left university in 2002 earned an average of $50,240, 21 per cent more than the average for women, who earned $41,400.
University students also finished study with more debt, with an average debt of $20,180 in 2007. That was 38 per cent higher than the average for all students of $14,620, which was up 1 per cent from 2005.
The number of students borrowing in a year under the student loan scheme reached a high of 173,766 last year, out of about half a million students in total.
Of students enrolled in 2007, 35 per cent received some form of financial help through the student loan scheme.
The trend showing an increasing proportion of borrowers, from a low of 30 per cent in 2005, SNZ said.
Some students are ineligible to borrow, with the Ministry of Education calculating that 66 per cent of those eligible to borrow in 2007 did so.
The total number of tertiary students receiving an allowance was up 5 per cent from 58,188 in 2006 to 61,230 in 2007, amounting to 12 per cent of students enrolled.
It was the second year in a row that the number of students receiving an allowance had risen, since numbers had started falling in 2002.
The increase likely reflected adjustments made to parental income threshold in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The average amount of allowance received edged down to $6550 in 2007.
Just over a third of borrowers who left study in 2002 had fully repaid their student loan five years later in 2007 - 14,244 of 41,610 borrowers.
- NZPA