At a recent event I was asked: What was the most common job in Australia? An easy question. Sales assistants are by far the most common job.

The 2021 Census revealed that 514,000 people worked as sales assistants in Australia – that’s one in every 23 jobs!

When you purchase goods or services in a retail or wholesale establishment, a sales assistant almost always plays a role in the transaction. They explain products to you, accept your payment, demonstrate product features, assist with stock management and presentation, and might even pack your goods.

You have likely worked as a sales assistant at some point yourself since it is the most common first job. Often sales assistants work as casuals or in part-time arrangements. Currently, these jobs are advertised in the $55,000 to $65,000 range (full-time).

To increase your income, you will need to grab another job at some point. When exactly do sales assistants stop being the most common job?

Men switch from assisting in retail to being an electrician at age 28.

From age 37 the most common male job is trucking. Only way after retirement age does beef cattle farming overtake truck driving as the most common profession. Farmers tend to be old as they hang on to their farms for as long as possible even if they already handed management of the farm over to the next generation.

Women remain sales assistants for longer and only switch jobs at age 32, on average. They hang up their branded uniform and slip into a white collared shirt to become a general clerk then, data says. For women that remains the most common profession well past retirement age.

From age 75 to 78 the women remaining in the workforce most likely work as book-keepers – often in the family business. From 79 onwards, very few women remain in the workforce but those who do are most likely beef cattle famers.

Let’s understand our most common jobs a bit more. Two-thirds of all 514,000 sales assistants are women. This data doesn’t tell us why this is the case, but it tells us when the gap is the biggest. In their mid-50s women make up 75 per cent of all sales assistants. These are likely women returning to the workforce after being the primary carer for their children for a prolonged period.

There are no formal qualifications needed to work as a sales assistant. It’s an obvious choice to finding your way back into the workforce. The age profile of male sales assistants clearly lacks that hump in the late-40s and 50s as they traditionally didn’t act as primary carers – for more on the topic let me refer you to my previous column arguing the gender pay gap is mostly a primary carer pay gap.

Let’s jump to the fourth most common job. Becoming a retail manager can be seen as the logical career progression for sales assistants who want to stay in the same line of work. The gender split here is perfectly even.

Male retail managers peak in the mid-30s and steadily decline from there. Female retail managers see two peaks. First in their mid-20s, likely a promotion from a previous role within the same organisation, and then again in the late-40s and early-50s. The second hump is a more intense version of the sales assistant hump discussed above.

We learned earlier that for 43 years (from age 32 to age 74) general clerks are the most common female occupation in Australia. It’s a heavily female dominated (86 per cent!) occupation. We see the hump in the late-40s and early-50s yet again.

You will therefore not be surprised that among aged and disabled carers we see the same hump again. These care jobs are overwhelmingly in the hands of women (77 per cent). This is yet another profession that is easy to access after spending a few years away from the workforce.

Within the four most common Australian jobs, 70 per cent are held by women. It appears that after acting as a primary carer, ease of access directs women into specific jobs. What else do these jobs have in common? Relatively low pay.

While we make fantastic advances in treating men and women the same within industries and within occupations, we are still channelling women into low-income jobs at scale.

Changing that is incredibly difficult. Through which mechanisms could we realistically raise the wage for care workers for example?

Demographer Simon Kuestenmacher is a co-founder of The Demographics Group. His columns, media commentary and public speaking focus on current socio-demographic trends and how these impact Australia. His podcast, Demographics Decoded, explores the world through the demographic lens. Follow Simon on Twitter (X), Facebook, LinkedIn for daily data insights in short format.