Gender wage disparity is apparently alive and well, and it starts right after college, a new national study found.

In Utah and nationwide, college-educated women working full time are earning less than their male counterparts in the same field even just one year out of university, according to a report released Monday by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in Washington, D.C.

The report, Behind the Pay Gap, found Utah women make only 71 percent of what their male colleagues earn, while women nationally make 74 percent of that of their male counterparts. The median annual earnings of college-educated women in Utah are $42,481, compared with the national annual median of $45,684. The report analyzes data from the U.S. Department of Education on nearly 20,000 college graduates from the years 1992-93 and 1999-2000.

"By looking at earnings just one year out of college, you have as level a playing field as possible," said Catherine Hill, the association's director of research. "These employees don't have a lot of experience and, for the most part, don't have care-giving obligations, so you'd expect there to be very little difference in the wages of men and women. But surprisingly, and unfortunately, we find that women already earn less -- even when they have the same major and occupation as their male counterparts."

Even more disturbing is the fact that the study found women who attended highly selective colleges still earn less than their male counterparts, and about the same as men from less-selective colleges, says Vicky Lovell, director of employment and work/life program with the Washington-based Institute for Women's Policy Research.

That's disturbing, Lovell said, because it suggests women have to work that much harder than men, but still earn less.

The report shows the pay gap exists despite the fact that women outperform men in school -- earning slightly higher GPAs than men in every college major, including science and mathematics. A part of that pay gap may be due to gender discrimination, the report said.

"This is happening 40 years after the passing of equal employment opportunity legislation like the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act," Lovell said. "Things haven't changed enough because it's very hard to change peoples' ideas about gender and the way power should be distributed. And many employers perpetuate unequal pay scales because they still have select attitudes about women's competence and appropriate sex roles."

Get math, science, engineering degrees

Reflecting widely held stereotypes, the study found men and women remain segregated by subject, with women making up 79 percent of education majors and men making up 82 percent of engineering majors. Similarly in the workplace, women make up 74 percent of the education field, and men make up 84 percent of engineering and architecture fields.

Lori Chillingworth, manager of the Zions Bank Women's Financial Group, hopes the pay gap will narrow over time as more women graduate with degrees in higher-paying fields in physical science, math and engineering -- a trend that will help translate to more equal pay opportunities for women.

"We have to build the confidence of our young women from the time they are very young. It helps that the education system in Utah is now trying to encourage more young women to be more confident about going into math and science. Hopefully it won't take another 30 years before things change, but I do think we'll get there," she said.

Still, that could be a challenge because Utah typically produces fewer women graduates in finance, banking and engineering compared with other states, due to lower female enrollment rates in those fields, according to Liz Tashjian, associate professor of finance with the University of Utah.

For instance, the University of Utah graduated 29 percent of its female business students for the academic year of 2003-04, compared with the Universities of Cincinnati and Virginia, which both graduated 43 percent each, she said.

"At the University of Utah, 30 percent of female students tend to drop out after their junior year, in part because many want to get married and have children earlier, and also because we haven't yet created a culture where most women understand the benefits of having an education and the costs of not having one," Tashjian said.

Utah's high birth rate

Utah's high birth rate also contributes to the wage gap. Parenthood takes women out of the work force at the time most workers are making salary gains, said Pam Perlich, adjunct assistant professor with the University of Utah's Urban Planning Program. Only 24.5 percent of women in Utah age 25 years and older completed a bachelor's degree in 2005, compared with the national average of 26 percent, she said.

"The persistence of the pay gap among young, college-educated, full-time workers suggests that educational achievement alone will not close the pay gap," Hill said. "We need to make workplaces more family-friendly, reduce sex segregation in education and in the workplace, and combat discrimination that continues to hold women back in the workplace."

To that end, how women sell their qualifications and abilities during a job interview is critical, Chillingworth said.

"Women need to practice on not selling themselves short. Men tend to sell themselves a little more, while women tend to give both their strengths and weaknesses. Few women tell their prospective employers what their expectations are. To overcome this, know what position you're applying for and the industry standard paid for the job," she said. "Go to salary.com or Thevault.com so you know what the job pays. Work on your negotiation skills. As young women, we've not had as much opportunity to negotiate for what we think we deserve."

Boning up on salary negotiation skills is critical especially since 10 years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning only 69 percent of what men earn, the report said. By that point, college-educated men have more authority in the workplace than their female counterparts and are more likely to be involved in hiring and firing, supervising and setting pay.

"It's extremely common to find the wage gap widening because men are aggressive about generating external job offers, while women aren't. It doesn't help that many women are taught to be nurturing and not aggressive, which adversely affects their ability to negotiate better salaries," Tashjian said. "Employers are also less likely to invest in putting women on the fast track because they are perceived as more likely to drop out of the work force to have children."

To narrow the gender wage gap, employers should consider the number of years worked, the quality of work and whether their male and female workers are receiving comparable pay, Tashjian said. "In Utah, there are no good protections for women who've stayed home either to support their husbands' careers or instead of going to school. If the woman ends up being a single head of household, if her husband dies, or divorces her, the odds of her and her children living in poverty are high."

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.