Don’t get too disheartened by the persistent 17.1% gender pay gap. It’s not ALL bad being a woman when it comes to just what’s in your wallet.
Indeed, the true financial benefits of being female came to the fore this week with the Daily Telegraph running a story pitting a male and female journalist against each other to see who could get into more Kings Cross nightclubs for free. Tanya Smart turned out to be the winner, forking out just $9 for various nightclub entrance fees and drinks, while Ian Walker found himself $69 out of pocket.
It’s the “high price of being a guy” according to the Telegraph. Or it might just be “lady luck” according to Smart.
So where else can ladies find such financial luck? We thought we’d trawl through some other places, situations and professions where it literally pays more, or saves, to be a woman.
Needless to say, the list come up a little short and we’re open to more suggestions in the comments field below.
Happy hour, all day long. Yep, it’s two hours for the price of one if you’re a working mum or a woman juggling many things at once, with the financial rewards being in your efficiency. Too bad it’s your employer who ultimately benefits while you somehow manage to put in double the workload in half the time — unless you’re your own boss.
The gym. Some gyms are exempt from the Anti-Discrimination Act, meaning they can be female-only. That means more competition and, theoretically, more choice of fees and fee structures for women. Of course, that’s if you can afford to get there in the first place, or even have the time.
After work drinks/client functions/golf days. Many women simply never get invited to these, cutting down on those pesky out-of-pocket expenses, such as a cab home or drink or snack outside of office meal allowances.
Car insurance. This is where being a woman truly pays off, at least until men get out of the dangerous/reckless years of their late teens and early twenties that push those insurance premiums up. But just remember, you’ll have an average 17% less to spend on an actual car than your male counterparts.
Models. Anywhere you can monetize good looks and women will usually come out on top. Only women feature on the list of world’s top ten earing models, with Miranda Kerr raking in an estimated US$7.2 million ($7.72 million) in 2013, according to Forbes. That’s only slightly less than the total $8 million the combined top ten male model earners took home in 2013. Unfortunately for most successful female models, your good looks define you, you’ll be seen as having only gotten to where you are due to the lottery of genetics and your career will last as long as you can hold off the signs of ageing. Meanwhile, the rest of us are judged, celebrated or berated based on our appearance, rather than ability and achievements.
Boards. With all this talk of women on boards, and boards looking to find suitable female candidates, surely it should be the one place where women can out-do the men? While women now have a better chance of such positions than ever before, such chances are still pretty slim, with just 18.1% of ASX 200 board positions held by women – a percentage that drops significantly at the smaller listed companies. The good news is that if you can crack an ASX 200, you’ll join a small pool of ‘found’ women who’ll continually be tapped for board positions.
A random selection of jobs. There are certain male-dominated industries where women earn slightly more than men, including truck driving, dentistry and electrical work, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data. The anomalies can’t always be explained but some theories include women being ‘overachievers’ in these fields or highly specialised in certain facets of such occupations. Or it could be that customers and clients are self-selecting women to perform these services for them.
Domestic cleaners. For some reason female cleaners too earn more than men when it comes to offering professional cleaning services, according to ABS data. If only domestic work in your own home could pull in a salary, women would be putting in enough overtime to see the general gender pay gap disappear altogether.
The 7 of 23 occupations where women graduates earn (slightly) more than men. A January 2013 GradStats report by Graduate Careers Australia found male graduates were taking home starting salaries paying an average $5000 more than female graduates, noting 13 occupations where men are being paid more straight out of university and just three where the cost of hiring a woman or man was the same.
The good news is there were seven professions where the balance tipped in favour of women, including computer sciences, earth sciences, engineering and pharmacy.
But a warning: Even if you do start work in those occupations you’ll want to get saving. The favourable pay gap doesn’t last long.