For women on campus, post-grad life is looking pretty bleak. A new study reveals women’s pay gap starts right after college.

It’s hard to believe in 2012 we’re still discussing why men make more money than their female counterparts and how to solve the problem of the wage gap, but here we are.

The American Association of University Women, AAUW, released a report last Wednesday titled “Graduating to a Pay Gap.” Among recent college graduates, full-time working women, on average, earn 82 percent of what their male peers make.

It also showed women are less likely than men to be fully employed one year after graduation, and when they do have a steady job, women still earn less. In addition, more women contribute a higher percentage of their salary toward repaying student loan debt.

Some of this is thought to be attributed to the difference in college majors and courses of study between genders in higher education. Men are statistically more likely to major in fields like computer science or engineering, which lead to higher paying jobs than majors like education and social sciences that women tend to gravitate toward.

But this is no longer considered a central factor, since the report made clear that there was even a pay difference between recent grads in the field of business. According to the report, women earned about $38,000 and men earned just above $45,000 on average in the first year after college.

The AAUW notes that the increasing numbers of claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shows that gender discrimination is a relevant issue.

“A lot of people think that stereotypes are a thing of the past,” said Catherine Hill, director of research at AAUW. “But we see that these things are continuing and real.”

This was somewhat of a hot topic during the recent presidential debates, when Mitt Romney referenced his “binders full of women” when hiring at his private company and President Barack Obama reminded viewers that the first piece of legislation he signed into office, as president, was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

To eliminate this problem and close the wage gap once and for all, there needs to be a serious effort made on individual levels. While political support and the passing of legislation like the Lilly Ledbetter Act is all good and well, there can’t be any authentically significant shifts toward pay equality until people embrace minor changes that affect people on a day-to-day basis.

The difference in pay between males and females doesn’t just exist because of official laws and the large, intangible systems we operate in. There’s a number of intrinsic ways in which discrimination plays out in seemingly minor ways in the work place that ultimately shape the larger gendered economy: parenting, occupational differences, mentors, negotiations and promotions, just to name a few.

Aside from voting for political representatives that will best work toward minimizing the wage gap, people need to consider their power and influence as individuals within our large and sometimes overwhelming economy.

Making changes on a personal level is the only way to ensure pay equality after leaving the financial security we have on campus.

Krystie Yandoli is a senior women’s and gender studies and English and textual studies major. She can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Twitter at @KrystieLYandoli.

Published on October 29, 2012 at 1:00 am