The overwhelming majority of Spain’s highest earners are male, according to new 2014 data released by the Finance Ministry.

Although men only represent 54 percent of all salary earners, they take up 82 percent of positions with earnings more than 10 times the minimum wage.

The figures are based on tax filings by companies that withheld taxes from 16,899,024 workers across Spain. Of these, 9.15 million were men and 7.74 million were women.

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Even though they are a smaller group, women are the majority on the lower rungs of the salary scale.

Among the highest earners, there were 22,792 women compared with 104,914 men. Also in that group, men made an average €152,174 a year whereas women made €133,404.

The figures released by the Finance Ministry in its report Mercado de trabajo y pensiones en las fuentes tributarias (or, Job market and pensions in tax sources) show a gender gap of more than €4,600 in the average salary.

While large, this difference has dropped from the more than €5,000 reported in 2012, according to the same sources.

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El País