Male neurosurgeons best-paid job in Australia

Male neurosurgeons earn the highest salary in Australia while judges are the best-paid job for women, said the Australian Tax Office on Thursday.

A male neurosurgeon takes an average of 577,674 Australian dollars (about 430,000 U.S. dollars) each year. However, women neurosurgeons are paid only 323,682 Australian dollars (240,000 U.S. dollars) on average, or just 56 percent of their male counterparts' salary.

Gender pay gap is large not only in the highest paid occupation, but also present throughout the whole list of jobs. The figures showed that all the top-10 best-paid male professions are in medicine, and they earn far more than women doing the same job.

For women, a judge on average is paid 355,844 Australian dollars (264,000 U.S. dollars) each year, followed by neurosurgeons and plastic surgeons. While the annual average income of male judges comes in at the 13th position with 381,323 Australian dollars (283,000 U.S. dollars), it is still higher than women in the same position.

Besides medicine specialists, investment brokers, members of parliament, sports physicians, chief executives and petroleum engineers are also among the best-paid.

The worst-paid jobs include manual labor and traineeships, many of them in industries that tend to employ part-time workers such as fruit pickers and newspaper deliverers and fast-food cooks. Endi