EDUCATION

The Education section contains the following sub-topics:

• Attainment (formal and non-school qualifications, literacy and numeracy skills)
• Participation (participation and retention rates, participation in a non-school qualification, work-related learning)
• Education and Employment (whether fully engaged, starting salaries)

Detailed data for these sub-topics is available from the Downloads tab above (see Table 2).


HIGHLIGHTS

Attainment

Year 12/Certificate II or above

In 2015, 90.1% of women aged 20-24 had attained Year 12 or a formal qualification at Certificate II or above, compared with 86.3% of men aged 20-24. Between 2001 and 2015, this proportion has consistently been higher for women in this age group (see Table 2.1).

In 2014, women aged 20-24 years who were born overseas were most likely to have completed Year 12 or a Certificate II or above (93.2%, compared with 88.1% of women born in Australia, 90.5% of men born overseas and 81% of men born in Australia). In 2012, these proportions were significantly lower for Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander men and women in this age group (59.4% and 57.3% respectively). See Table 8.1 for more detail.

Certificate III or above

Between 2001 and 2015, more women than men aged 18-24 years attained a formal qualification at Certificate III or above, although when looking at a broader age range (18-64), more men overall had done so. This balance seems to tip at around the age of 35-44 years, and continues into older age groups (see Figure 1 below, and Table 2.3 via the Downloads tab for more detail).



Bachelor degree or above

In 2015, 30% of men and 40% of women aged 25-29 had attained a Bachelor Degree or above. Since 2001, women in the 18-54 year age group have been consistently more likely than men to have attained a qualification at this level (see Table 2.5 via the Downloads tab).



Between 2001 and 2015 more males than females aged 15-64 years had attained a Postgraduate Degree (see Table 2.7).


Participation

Participation rates

Between 2001 and 2015, education participation rates were consistently higher for females than males aged 15-64 years (an average of 19.7% and 17.8% respectively over that time). See Table 2.15 for more detail.

Enrolment in Certificate III or above

While women aged 18-64 were more likely to have been enrolled in a Bachelor Degree or above (see Table 2.19), men were more likely to be enrolled in an Advanced Diploma, Diploma, or Certificate III/IV. In 2015, however, the gap between men and women aged 18-24 who were enrolled in these courses was the smallest it has been since the start of the time series in 2001 (13.5% and 12.1% respectively; see Figure 3 below, and Table 2.20 via the Downloads tab).



Enrolment in apprenticeships and traineeships

Males aged 15-24 years are more than three times as likely to be enrolled in an apprenticeship/traineeship as females in that age group. The proportion of males aged 15-24 years enrolled in an apprenticeship/traineeship has been trending down since 2008. There were, however, some ups and down for females aged 15-24 years over this time, with a 1.7 percentage point increase for females between 2014 and 2015 (see Table 2.21 for details).


Education and Employment

Not fully engaged in education and/or employment

In 2015, around one in eight young people aged 15-19 years were not fully engaged in either education or employment (that is, they were were not studying or working at all; studying part-time and not working; or not studying but were in part-time work). This number rose to just under a quarter of young men (23.4%) and 29.5% of young women aged 20-24. Between 2001 and 2015, there has been a consistently higher proportion of women in this group (see Table 2.27 via the Downloads tab for more detail).



For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, 50.5% of men and 66.9% of women aged 20-24 were not fully engaged in education or employment in 2012 (see Table 8.27).

Median starting salaries

While the gap in the median starting salary between male and female Bachelor Degree graduates has been decreasing since 2012, males still earned a starting salary that was $2000 more than females in 2015 (see Figure 5 below, and Table 2.29).