The real reason women are paid less has nothing to do with their negotiating skills.

It’s no secret that, across the board, women earn less than men.

What is being kept secretive is how this gap occurs.

It turns out that women are just as likely to request a higher rate of pay as their male counterparts, they are just not likely to be granted it.

Research published by the Cass Business School in London, the University of Warwick in the U.K., and the University of Wisconsin, found that women under 40 were just as successful at gaining raises in the workplace as men.

The same paper found that women in general were paid less than men, and not because they’re afraid to ask for a raise, but because they’re not given one when they do.

The research found that women across all age ranges were 25 per cent less likely than men to get a raise when they asked for it.

The study drew its findings using data from 4,600 workers across 840 Australian workplaces.

The findings hit back at the idea women are simply too meek to ask for more money but instead point towards a larger discrimination

Co-author and professor of economics and behavioral science at Warwick University, Andrew Oswald, told Fortune they expected to find evidence that women are less aggressive when it came to financial matters in the workplace.

“We were expecting to find evidence for this old theory that women are less pushy than men,” he said.

“But the women and the men were equal.”

Co-author and associate professor at Cass Business School, Amanda Goodall, said the success rate of younger women could only be considered good news.

“That’s got to bode well for reducing the gender pay gap,” she said.

“For me, it feels like the tide is turning.”