Aussie Female Pro Surfers Earn More Than Their Male Counterparts!

In every corner of culture and industry gender inequality, and more specifically the gender pay gap is being rigorously examined.

Here’s a story from our little corner that is bound to excite surf fans striving for a more gender equal world. In 2015 Female Australian pro surfers earned more than their male counterparts!

Yep, you read that right. According to the Australian Tax Office, in the 2015-16 financial year the country’s 22 female Pro surfers took home $68,178 on average, compared to than the $40,396 earned by their 81 male counterparts.

In fact, surfing was one of only 80 professions where the girls earned more than the boys, compared to 1000 where the reverse was true. Surfing was in good company in the former category, sharing the ranks with jobs like future traders (whatever they are) and goat farmers.

Tyler Wright’s 400k prize money probably helped tip the scales! Photo Damien Poullenot // WSL

The figures do however show there are still a lot more full time male professional surfers than female, but those who are earning, are earning pretty well! If we were in Scandinavia the names and salaries would be published in full, and so we could dive right in and bring you all kinds of devilishly interesting extrapolations, but we aren’t, so we can’t.

What we can tell you though, is that this ain’t down to shortlists or positive discrimination and therefore even the most ardent free-marketeers among you can’t argue this isn’t a step forward for our sport, which until recently has seen male athletes earning far more than women across the spectrum.

The only caveat would be that it’s possible the male pros are better at squirrelling away their income when the taxman comes knocking, but who’d want to live in such a glass half empty world!

Cover: Steph Gilmore, who last year made number seven on the Stab rich list! Photo Roxy