Want to earn more than men? Take up surfing, or bulldozing, or maybe goat farming

Want to earn more than men? Take up surfing, or bulldozing, or maybe goat farming

There are 80 occupations in Australia where women are actually out-earning their male counterparts.

If you’d like to be in one of them, you might want to take up surfing, gymnastics, bulldozing, master fishing or perhaps future trading.

Just prepare to enter some competitive job markets if you do any of the above. Just 22 women are described as a ‘surfer’, according to tax returns lodged with the Australian Tax Office in the 2015/16 financial year. That’s compared to 81 men. These female surfers had an average taxable income of $68,178, compared to $40396 for men.

Just 23 women are listed as ‘future traders’, with an average taxable income of $388,681 compared to the 268 men with an average $300,923.

The biggest gender pay gap in favour of women was reserved for ‘state governors’, where six women declared themselves as such, compared to 19 men. The women are earning $117,528 more, with an average taxable income of 286,676.

Other occupations in the top ten for women out-earning men included gymnasts, bulldozer operators, master fishers, forestry apprentices, goat farmers, auto-glaziers, saw sharpeners and sand-blasters.

There’s something for everyone in that list.

In 11th place were magistrates, with a gender pay gap in favour of women of $13,765. The ATO reported 199 female magistrates earning an average $265,478, compared with 337 men on $251713.

The ATO data has been published across an extensive feature on the ABC today. It examines the earnings of 16 million Australians across the 2015/16 financial year,  according to the job they say they work in on their tax returns. While it does not take into a account whether an individual is working part time or full time, and more women then men may be working part time in some of the occupations indicated, the figures are still mind-boggling and indicate a significant wealth divide between male and female Australians.

While women out-earn men across 80 occupations, many of them obscure, there are still another 1000 or so occupations where men continue to out-earn women, in some cases by a sickening amount.

In the top 10 jobs where men have higher incomes than women the differences can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. A male Ophthalmologist earns $330,000 more than his female counterparts, taking home $578,838 a year compared to women on $247,905. There are similar gaps across other medical professions, including Otorhinolaryngologists, where men take home $304,000 more than women.

Meanwhile those men who declare their job as being ‘cricketer’ on their tax returns take home $311,972 a year, compared with women on $39,711.

The gaps are significant also for musicians/singers, with men on $306,580 compared with $38,002 a year.

 

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