Millennials, there's some good and bad news about your gender pay gap

LONDON -- The gender pay gap for UK millennials now stands at 5 percent; halving the gap experienced by the previous generation, new research suggests.

But, while that might sound like good news, the research -- shared with Mashable -- also shows that this progress is set to be undone as soon as women enter their 30s and 40s, meaning that millennial women will still earn significantly less than men over their careers.

The analysis -- conducted by living standards think-tank, the Resolution Foundation -- looked at the typical hourly pay of different generations of women from as far back as the greatest generation (people born between 1911 and 1925); tracking it over the course of their careers and comparing it to that of their male counterparts.

The research into women's early careers found that baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965) had a pay gap of 16 percent, which fell to 9 percent for women in generation X (born between 1966 and 1980) and then to 5 percent for millennials (born between 1981 and 2000).

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Across each of these generations, any progress shown in the early career phase is rapidly undone when women enter their 30s and 40s.

For baby boomers, the pay gap increased from 21 percent at age 30 to 34 percent at age 40. For generation X, the gap rose from 10 percent at age 30 to 25 percent at age 40.

For millennial women, the increase is much the same as previous generations. The pay gap rises dramatically to 9 percent when women reach the age of 30, just one percent less than it was for generation X women.

Age-old challenges still persist

The report states that this persistent gap suggests "the old challenges associated with having children" still endure for young women today.

"Young women today face relatively little disadvantage in terms of their pay packets compared to what their parents’ and grandparents’ generation faced," Laura Gardiner -- senior policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation -- said in a statement.

"But while many millennial women haven't experienced much of a pay gap yet, most probably will once they reach their 30s, when they start having children," Gardiner continues.

Women's rights organisation the Fawcett Society says that the report's findings do not suggest that the gender pay gap has been solved.

The problem is far from solved

“The gender pay gap grows over women’s working lives, particularly impacted by the point when women have children. But it is misleading to think we’ve cracked it for young women," says Sam Smethers, chief executive of Fawcett Society.

Smethers says that the number of women in the workforce who are graduate-educated overtook men in the mid-'90s, which she believes means that the pay gap should be much smaller.

"Millennial women overall are earning more relative to men than previous cohorts of younger women because more of them are graduates. But the gap soon opens up," Smethers continued.

Indeed, other studies have pointed out that the gender pay gap among millennial graduates is showing very little progress since the previous generation. Recent research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests the gender pay gap for UK graduates is as bad as it was 20 years ago. According to the research, the gender wage gap has only continued to shrink over the past two decades among the lowest-educated individuals. While these new findings can give millennials hope, it's clear that more work is yet to be done to close the gap for women over the age of 30.