Education & Work Top 50 highest paying jobs in AU

Golfer? I should stop dreaming about my son making into Australian test team. university is easier.

 

But some of us also like residential properties, renovation, granny flat, developments and commercial properties....

 

That's an average right?
To earn a million bucks pa, I'm working very, very hard.

 

No way. But now it can't be substituted. Yet.

 

I have nothing but respect for the majority of the list, and think they deserve every penny. A friend will become a qualified anaesthetist this year, she graduated high school 12 years ago. It has taken that long from doing undergraduate, phd, post doctoral qualifications, working crappy shifts in regional emergency rooms etc etc,

I Suppose if you go straight from high school into work/investing you get about a 10 year head start, but over a lifetime it would be hard to do better without going down a very successful entrepreneur route.

 

Based on my personal experience (which I understand is anecdotal, not statistical evidence), I've always found the gender pay gap is real but there seems to be a growing movement purporting that it's not real and it's a myth. Most articles that reject the gender pay gap state there is an overall lifetime income difference due to women's choices in what career they take (eg. teacher vs engineer), time off for parenting etc. Overall though, they say that if you put a male worker beside a female worker, there is no pay gap in them doing the same job.

But I'm not sure how anyone can see this hard evidence from the ATO and say the gap is not real. These are just some examples below but it seems the difference is there in every profession.

Male Neurosurgeon $577,674
Female Neurosurgeon $323,682

Male Judge — law $381,323
Female Judge — law $355,844

Male Psychiatrist $234,557
Female Psychiatrist $152,437

Male Member of Parliament $232,093
Female Member of Parliament $173,331

Just one article of many that reject the myth:
Why the gender pay gap is a myth

“Averages can be prone to be misleading,” said Dr Mikayla Novak, senior fellow with free-market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. “The differences in pay should be acknowledged to reflect individual choices of balance between work and family commitments.

Dr Novak said all the evidence shows the observed “pay gap” is due to choices people make for themselves, and not some sort of entrenched discrimination by employers.

Even the WGEA acknowledges that the gap “reflects the overall position of women in the workforce and does not reflect ‘like-for-like’ pay gaps for employees in the same or comparable roles”.

I try and find the balancing arguments of each side because I would like to know the truth on this issue, but it's hard to argue with numbers.

 

@Bran how do Neurosurgeons make their $$$ (and other specialists for that matter)? Is it via seeing x amount of clients, charging y amount of dollars? Which means that their salaries are derived from the clients they see and what these clients are willing to pay. If so, the argument saying "female neurosurgeons are paid less, therefore there is a gender pay gap" is logically fallacious. The premise that female neurosurgeons are paid less, is not in any way, shape or form, related whatsoever to the conclusion that supports a gender pay gap.

 

This is why most people will never be content with what they have.... stop comparing to others.

Run your own race & benchmark against your own goals.

 

It's fee for service
So... see more, do more, charge more.
Public salaries are identical, so the difference is in private. You do as much or as little as you want (or can get).

 

I question some of the figures in the article. in terms of public sector secretary/dep sec there would be zero people male or female in the pay ranges quoted.

 

Ok, @Bran or anyone else with insight, are there any of those medical specialists that you have seen where you think, geez they do pretty well for the pressure/risk/effort involved?

Obviously they are all highly skilled in thrir fields, but some of them would seem extremely intense/stressful such as neurosurgeon/cardiac surgeon (one mistake and your patient is dead) are there any which seem like a nicer niche to be in? (If you are game to say!)

 

Anaesthetics
Most surgery is equally stressful and high stakes

 

Yep...same in thr mgt consulting field. a fairly big Paygap exists...it's so noticeable that a lot of these companies have specific webpages on their corporate website solely dedicated to why women should join.
The stories I've heard is that males have higher potential (thus higher pay) by having just that little more confidence that can make a big difference in the end results.
Dunno..just what I've heard.

 

My experience is that across most industries now, women are paid the same RATES as men as per their experience and quals.

What I think tends to skew these pay stats is who stays in the workforce, for how long, how much ambition to rise up the ranks, etc.

We have a CEO of the CBA Bank who is a female now, we have had a female PM, various high level surgeons, a Police Commissioner, House Speaker, Senators and so forth...; so this negates the argument that there are "glass ceilings" out there.

This is a generalisation, but I would say that a larger number of women than men choose to leave the workforce/cut their hours to have/look after kids?

This surely would have an impact on the volume of dollars earned by women collectively, but not on a case-to-case basis?

 

The risk also determines their mal-practice liability insurance. A GP will pay far less than the Neuro, or the Gyno, etc.

The higher earning and higher risk end of that profession need to charge way more to cover that cost.

 

How many hours would you need to put in to get that 1mil a year?

I do think that 99% of jobs simply wont be able to compete with a good business. Why I like development is that I have low overheads and can delegate 90% of the work out to other consultants while I sit back. Sounds crazy... but its the reality. Of course there is financial risk involved etc.

 

I think what you said above does explain the overall earning potential over a lifetime.
The article doesn't say what period the data was from. Maybe it's safe to say if it came from the ATO, it was referring to the last financial year? A large gap in pay between genders is hard to justify in one year.
My experience is across mining, health and tech and I've never seen equal pays. Health was probably the closest to equal. I worked in the finance department in each industry and saw all the pays

 

Most of them :/
It's not sustainable at my current pricing structure

 

Can only vouch for health; pays are equal based on quals and experience.