Not afraid to ask: Heidi Sundin. Credit:Wolter Peeters Fortunately, she managed to talk her boss around and he agreed to give her a pay rise. "If I observe that someone else is receiving a higher pay than me in the same job, for no reason, I will raise it," she said. "I'm very fortunate to have had leaders who have fixed the issue." In a surprise finding, a new study has found that young Australian female employees get pay rises just as often as young Australian men.

Researchers from the Cass Business School, the University of Warwick and the University of Wisconsin, have found that women of all age groups ask for wage rises just as often as men, but men are 25 per cent more likely to get a raise when they ask. But when it came to younger women, they were just as likely as younger men to get a pay rise. "This study potentially has an upside," study co-author Dr Amanda Goodall at Cass Business School said. "Young women today are negotiating their pay and conditions more successfully than older females, and perhaps that will continue as they become more senior." The study showed that Australian women of all ages are not holding back when it comes to asking for a pay rise.

Dr Goodall said the study was the first proper test of the theory that women were more reticent than men when it came to asking for a pay rise. "And the evidence doesn't stand up," she said. The study titled, Do Women Ask?, found no evidence for the assumption that women are less pushy than men or that they hold back to avoid upsetting their boss. Study co-author Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Warwick, said he suspects the gender pay gap will widen again for the younger women when they get older. "My own hunch would be that, under the surface, modern Australia has only partially closed the gender getting-gap in pay," he told Fairfax Media.

"I suspect these young men will pull away from the young women as that younger cohort enters their 50s and 60s." "That is the stage in life when workers start to earn the really big money. I doubt that future gender inequalities have been fully overturned yet. "To know for sure, we need to study these cohorts of Australians through the future." Libby Lyons, director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, said it was encouraging to see evidence that young women have improved outcomes in pay negotiations. "It seems young women and men are challenging workplace norms in many ways," she said.

"For example, research shows that young men increasingly want and expect access to workplace flexibility and will consider changing employers if they don't get it. "The new generation of employees, both male and female, are seeking to balance their breadwinning and caring roles – not choose between them." Gemma Lloyd, a director of Diverse City Careers, a job-seeking service for women, said she had found women in senior roles who had been working for more than ten years were less confident asking for pay rises, especially if they had taken time off work to have children. She said many women were more likely than men to give emotional reasons for wanting a pay rise, such as needing to support children through school. "Whereas a man will go in and say I want more money because I have done x, y and z and they will be very data driven and logical," Ms Lloyd said.

"Younger women haven't experienced yet some of the unconscious bias that goes on in the workforce and I have found they are a lot more confident." Ms Sundin, who has just started working as an independent business strategy consultant, said she spent most of her career working for other people. During the early stage of her career she assumed she would be treated fairly in the workplace. "It never occurred to me that I wouldn't be paid as much as my male colleagues," she said. Ms Sundin believes younger women today are more aware of the gender pay gap and have a greater expectation of equality.

Companies are also more likely to be aware of and have strategies to address unconscious bias in the workplace. While she was confident asking for a pay rise from employers, Ms Sundin feels less confident negotiating fees as she builds up a new business. "It's a really fine balance between trying to start a business and discounting work and knowing what you are worth and staying true to that," she said. TIPS ON ASKING FOR A PAY RISE: 1) Have the courage to ask for a pay rise

2) Don't give emotional reasons for why you want an increase. 3) Emphasise what value you are adding to the organisation. 4) Practice having the conversation with your employer in advance of the discussion. 5) Research your employer and whether they do a pay roll analysis.