The release of the annual taxation statistics by the ATO offers a plethora of information about Australian workers that gives us an excellent snapshot of the nation. And the figures highlight that middle Australia earns much less than the government would have you believe and that women across all occupations continue to earn much less than men.

As we get closer to the budget, the phrase “middle Australia” will be put on high rotation in politician’s talking points. Last year the phrase was mostly used to justify the government raising the second highest income tax threshold from $80,000 to $87,000.

Last year, Malcolm Turnbull said it showed the government was “focusing on ensuring that Australians, middle-income Australians, those that are on average full-time earnings, which, as you know is nudging $80,000, don’t move into the second top tax bracket”.

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And yet, the 2014-15 taxation statistics released last week revealed that the median taxable income of the 9.95m Australians with a taxable income was just $54,543. If you earned more than that, then you earned more than at least half of Australians.

We always need to be a bit careful, however, before suggesting that is the median Australian income. Taxation statistics provide information on individuals, not households. If two adults living together with no children are both earning $54,543, they are most likely doing a lot better than half of Australian households.

And the difficulty is that we need to talk about more than just average and median, we also need to talk gender.

When Turnbull talks about average full-time earnings nudging $80,000, he is talking about men, not women. The current average total earnings for men working full-time is $89,221, for women full-time workers it is $72,212.

But when we look at median earnings we see that these amounts are well above what half of Australia earns. While the median income for all workers in 2014-15 was $54,543, there is a big difference for the median men and women. Men overwhelmingly earn more than women:

There are numerous reasons for this but the two key ones are that women are more likely to work part-time and are also more heavily employed in lower-paying occupations. It means that while the median income for all taxpayers was $54,543, the median for all women was just $47,125, while it was $61,711 for men.

Either way, however, both are well below $80,000, let alone the new threshold of $87,000:

Had you earned $80,000 in 2014-15 you would have earned more than 67% of men and 83% of women and 74% of all Australians – hardly in the middle:

But while the figures do demonstrate the difference between the myth of what politicians would have us believe is middle Australia and the reality, the gap between the earnings of men and women is perhaps the most startling.

Women made up 45% of all people earning a taxable income in 2014-15, and yet they accounted for just 25% of those in the richest 10% but 57% of those in the poorest decile:

It goes without saying that if you earn a large income you are more likely to be a man and if you earn a small income you are most likely to be a woman – and it really does not matter what your job is.

It is no shock to discover that, of the professional sportspeople, men are much better off. Nineteen per cent of the 9,600 sportsmen earned more than $80,000 in 2014-15, compared with just 2.7% of the 3,300 women earning a living playing sport:

And it is perhaps also unsurprising to see the gender earnings divergence among CEOs and managing directors. In 2014-15 CEOs were the ninth-highest paying occupation by median income. But while 20% of male CEOs were in the top tax bracket, only 11% of women were:

Women made up 27% of all CEOs but just 17% of those in the top tax bracket, and by contrast accounted for 36% of CEOs whose income was below $18,200.

But it is somewhat more surprising to see the divide even among professions considered favourable to women.

There are well over double the number of women working as HR professionals and yet 40% of the men earn over $80,000 compared with just 22% of women:

Similarly there are almost the same number of female and male accountants and yet men once again are much more likely to earn six figures:

Female journalists also suffer compared with their male counterparts, despite there being more women in the profession than men. Forty-one per cent of male journalists earned over $80,000 in 2014-15 compared with a mere 24% of female journalists:

The breakdown of secondary school teachers incomes is instructive. The higher-income teachers are those with extra responsibility as well as seniority. And yet while women make up 62% of all secondary teachers, they account for just over half of those earning over $80,000.

Of the nearly 88,000 women teaching in secondary schools, only 33% earn over $80,000 compared with 46% of the 54,000 male teachers.

Such divergence can certainly be explained by greater numbers of women working part-time but in other professions the sense of gender bias appears rather stark.

There are roughly the same number of male and female barristers in Australia – 807 men, 847 women. And yet male barristers, by a massive amount, are situated in the highest tax bracket compared with women:

Nearly two-thirds of female barristers earned less than $37,000 in 2014-15 compared with just over a quarter of their male counterparts.

Is that really only because women choose to work less or in lower-paid areas of law? Or is it just possibly the well-known issues of the boys’ club in the legal profession is reflected in the type of work and earnings female barristers achieve?

But even among the low-paid occupations, such as sales assistants, women are more likely to be among the lowest-paid workers:

Yes, a tendency toward greater part-time work is a reason.

These figures don’t suggest women are being paid less for the same level of work – but they do suggest women are not able to reach the same level of work that would see them earn higher incomes. And it occurs across every job.

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Sure, much of it is choice. But that choice is greatly influenced by social norms. As we saw last week when the ABS release the data on the “typical Australian”, the typical Australian women does five to 14 hours of unpaid housework a week compared to the typical male, who does less than five.

So long as women are expected to do more housework, more of the childcare (which as I have noted, occurs regardless of the employment status of either partner), women will struggle to earn an equal amount as men – regardless of which job they do.

And of course this has real consequences. That income gap adds up – and it is most clearly seen in the difference in superannuation balances of men and women as they age:

The median superannuation balance for a woman aged 55 to 59 is $40,000 less than a same aged man. That’s fine if you happen to be married to such a man but it highlights that the sacrifice of staying at home results in a level of income dependence for women in retirement that most men don’t have to worry about.