AS MOST of us roll out of bed to get back on the clock after a football-filled long weekend, it can be hard to resist pondering how the other half live. It can be intriguing to muse how much our neighbours, perhaps in the next suburb or town over, are raking in and what motivates them to get up for work.

Australian Bureau of Statistics has given Ballarat a snapshot, showing workers who live in this city earn about $400 a week less on average than other Victorians. It even shows our top earners are living in Alfredton, earning a median $26,521 a year, closely followed by Smythes Creek and Buninyong. Note, this average takes into account all workers, including those part-time and teenagers setting out on their first jobs.

Statistics often do not show the human stories that make up the numbers, but they can lend a suggestion to the bigger issues in communities.

Fairfax Media at the weekend reported older women are heading back to the workplace in large numbers to bridge the shortfall in their superannuation before retirement. Women aged 55 to 64 have a 37 per cent lower average superannuation balance than men last year, ABS data shows. The proportion of working women aged 65 to 74 has almost doubled in a decade and is fast on the rise for women aged 60 to 64 – an increase clearly faster than their male counterparts.

In Ballarat, the overall number of females in the workforce has remained steady while the number of males on the job has dropped six per cent in the past five years.

Uniting Ballarat executive officer Sean Duffy told The Courier last month older women, particularly those who experience domestic violence or have a low-socioeconomic background, were a high risk group for homelessness. Mr Duffy said there was a correlation to insufficient superannuation and other investments for support.

PlanDo founder Anne Moore, an online career coach, says women need to accept they must work longer to fill the superannuation gap and because, on average, women live longer too. She advocates updating and renewing skills as fundamental to personal well-being and a financial necessity.

Data can be a great benchmark to compare how we match to like regions (Ballarat’s average income in the past year is higher than in Bendigo and Geelong). Importantly, data needs to get us talking on such big issues, like gender pay equity, if we are to find a way to improve it.

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