ATO data shows men earn more than women in almost 96% of occupations

The latest annual taxation statistics from the ATO reveal that the gender pay gap remains very real and spans almost every occupation.

The annual tax statistics provide a plethora of data for researchers – every question posed on a tax return is measured and calculated. Among photographers, for instance, 27 women were in the top tax bracket compared with 85 men.

We know that the highest paying occupation is “Diagnostic and interventional radiologist” with an average salary of $383,218, while the occupation with the highest total income (i.e. including all non-salary income) is that of a neurosurgeon, with an average income of $705,327.

The great thing about the annual tax stats is the numbers cut through all the guff. It records how much you earn over the year.

And that is the crucial thing. If two people are both on $50 an hour, but one person gets 38 hours a week while the other gets 20 hours, no one is saying they are on the same income. Or, if two people both work as footballers (average salary, $183,038), but one person earns $50,000 in the year, while the other makes $150,000, no one is saying they earn the same just because they have the same occupation,

This is vital because the statistics provide us with average and median salaries across the 1,101 different types of occupation – everything from abattoir process worker to zoologist.

And the result is stark.

Once we remove the 34 occupations where 10 or fewer men or women work (which distorts the averages), men have a higher average salary in 96% of the remaining 1,067 occupations:

It gets rather starker when you drill down and look at individual jobs.

The most women-dominated occupation is that of a midwife: 98.2% of the 22,628 midwives are women.

The most male-dominated occupation is a plumber: 99.4% of the 38,027 plumbers are men.

In both jobs, men have a higher average salary:

Yes, you read that right. Male midwives have a higher average salary than women midwifes.

In her appearance at the National Press Club, Pauline Hanson suggested that there was no pay gap because men and women are paid the same rate for the same job. But it is a lot easier to say that when your job is Member of Parliament (which includes senators in the ATO stats), where the difference in the pay gap is just 0.13%, compared to the average across all occupations of 25%.

The occupation with the biggest gender pay gap is that of a tennis player – probably skewed by having one man in the top 10, Alex de Minaur (only 17 men and 12 women put that down as their profession, so one big salary can really skew the figures).

But the second biggest pay gap is for footballers – men earn 59.8% on average more than women do. In this case, we have bigger numbers to work with – 2,461 men and 662 women put down “footballer” as their occupation on their tax return. Similarly, male cricketers are paid on average 59.6% more than their women counterparts.

As a general rule, the higher the share of workers in an occupation who are women, the lower the pay gap – but regardless, the pay gap remains for almost all jobs:

But in the 218 occupations where men and women make up at least 40% of the entire workforce, just 5 have a higher average salary for women: dishwasher, magistrate, cook – fast food or short order, university tutor, and wool classer.

So even in those jobs where you are just as likely to work next to a woman as a man, that man will be more likely to earn more than the woman.

And that, of course, is because they are more likely to be employed full-time, they are more likely to get extra shifts, they are more likely to get promotions and hold the senior positions, they are more likely to get overtime – all the things that lead to higher salary or wages.

The other issue is that male-dominated occupations pay much more than those jobs considered ‘traditional women’s jobs’:

The average salary of occupations where women make up more than 90% of workers is $56,025, while the average salary of jobs where men make up at least 90% of workers is $87,639.

In 47 of the 50 highest-paid occupations, men have a higher average, compared to “just” 38 of the 50 lowest-paying occupations.

Worse still, the situation is not getting better. In 2018-19, men had a higher average salary in 94.3% of the occupations where more than 10 men or women worked.

So, while there might be improvement on the hourly or weekly wage gap, when it comes down to the entire year and how much men and women earn, the gap remains large and across almost every job.

Find how much your occupation earns on average: