Women make up 53% of employees in financial and insurance services in Australia, yet most are on the lowest end of the pay range.  

Only 37% of the industry’s female employees are in the upper quartile of remuneration, which on average pays $323,593 a year including bonuses.

Women make up 66% of employees earning a lower-quartile average remuneration of $79,380.  

“The fact that men are nearly twice as likely as women to be in the highest-paid roles and that women still dominate the lowest paid roles should offer a reality check for anyone who thinks Australia has achieved equality in the workplace,” Workplace Gender Equality Agency CEO Mary Wooldridge said.

The WGEA has published gender pay gap results for 10,500 Australian employers and nearly 5.9 million workers.

In financial and insurance services, the mid-point average total remuneration gender pay gap is 21.4%.

While that is an improvement of 0.8 percentage points from a year earlier, only construction has a larger gap – 23.8% – and it is close to double the 11.2% gap across all industries.

The average total remuneration in financial and insurance services is $169,992 a year.

WGEA says in highly paid or male-dominated industries, 80% of workplaces have gender pay gaps larger than the national one.

Australian men are 1.8 times more likely to earn the highest-quartile salaries. Below is an insurance industry breakdown by company.