Women are increasingly breaking the glass ceiling but a stubborn “broken rung” on the employment ladder persists. There has been a revolution in participation by women in the workforce since the turn of the century in Ireland, in common with most other developed countries. In that time, the number of women in employment has been rising more quickly than male employment, while those who reported their principal economic status as “engaged in home duties” fell by 60 per cent from 520,500 in 2010 to 208,200 last year. But with more than six in 10 employed women having a third-level degree compared with just over half of all men, why is there still a gender pay gap?
First, it is worth looking at longer-term trends. There has been an upward trend in the number of women in the workforce. By the end of last year the Central Statistics Office labour force survey showed 1.465 million men in employment compared with 1.310 million women. The long-term trend has seen a faster growth in female employment since the CSO series began in 1998, before the Celtic Tiger years. Since then female employment has more than doubled, while male employment – having started from a higher position – has risen by a bit more than 50 per cent. And this trend has continued in recent years, with female employment up 20 per cent since before the pandemic, while male employment has risen by 14 per cent.
Figures on female participation in the jobs market underline the changes. Back in 1998, 46.8 per cent of working age women participated in the jobs markets – being either in work or looking for work. This has now risen to 60.6 per cent. The biggest change has come among married women, where participation has risen from 44 per cent in 1998 to 63 per cent now. While Eurostat used a slightly different measure for international comparisons, the participation by working age women in the jobs market is now similar in Ireland to EU and international averages having lagged behind for many years.
Women’s earnings have also risen slightly faster than men’s on average – though not enough to close the gap. Median weekly earnings among female employees rose 32.7 per cent between 2013 (when they were €469.74) and 2023 (€623.23). This compares to a 30.5 per cent rise in median weekly earnings for men – though having started well ahead they still earn more – to €770.52 in 2023.
The broken rung in the career ladder - why women continue to earn less
How crucial are US pharma firms to Ireland? And what happens if Trump entices them home?
In an era of rising property prices, the rich in Ireland are only getting richer
The latest housing crisis ‘solutions’: Which could work and which are hare-brained?
[ Gender pay gap increased at three government departments during 2024Opens in new window ]
More women are also featuring among higher earners, with the proportion of females among the top 1 per cent of earners increasing by five percentage points from 21.4 per cent in 2018 to 26.4 per cent in 2023 – though this is still well below the female share in the workforce. The proportion of females in employment with earnings in the top 10 per cent rose from 27.8 per cent to 30.2 per cent over the same period.
However the gender pay gap, which looks at hourly earnings, remains and is calculated by the CSO at about 9.6 per cent in 2022, its most recent full estimation. This is a measure across all job types and not of the difference between women and men doing the same job. In 2023, almost one in three female employees had weekly earnings of less than €450, compared with one in five men.
The CSO found that the gender pay gap was highest in the financial, insurance and real-estate sectors at 24.7 per cent and lowest in the education sector at 2.7 per cent.
So why is this happening?
1. Lower-paying sectors
A key reason is that more women work in sectors which pay less. Women dominate employment in the accommodation and food service sector and it is the area where they earn the least – about €316 per week – including both full- and part-time employees. In contrast, women in the information and communications sector, the highest-earning sector for women as well as men, earned €1,157 per week on average. However, the high proportion of women in lower-paying sectors still affects the overall averages. Women account for about three-quarters of all employees in the health and social work and education sectors, where weekly earnings stood at €728 and €826 respectively in 2023. This compares with average male earnings in all sectors of €770.
2. Part-time work
The gender pay gap is generally taken as a comparison of pay per hour. However, the fact that more women work part-time is a key reason for their overall lower weekly and annual earnings. On average women work just over 30 hours per week in paid employment while men work 35.7 hours. While women account for 42 per cent of people (919,600) in full-time employment, they account for more than two-thirds (391,100) of part-time employment. The greatest proportion of women who work part-time – about a third – do so to “look after children or incapacitated adults”. Just over a fifth do so because they are also involved in “school, education or training”, including many in school or university fitting in part-time work.
[ Gender pay gap most pronounced in legal profession, according to PwC IrelandOpens in new window ]
3. The maternity factor
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has consistently highlighted the issue of maternity as a key reason for the gender pay gap and called for employers to change policies in terms of dealing with women who have caring responsibilities. Their case was backed up by a paper published in December 2022 – Why do the earnings of male and female graduates diverge? – written by Maynooth economists Aedin Doris, Donal O’Neill and Olive Sweetman. It looked at male and female graduates and found that, while they were generally initially employed at the same wage rate, eight or 10 years later males were ahead by 25 per cent or more. A key explainer in the research was a fall-off in female pay after having children – by about 27 per cent on average. Some of this related to women working part-time after starting a family but there also seemed to be other factors at play, suggesting a longer-term cost to their career and pay levels.
4. The broken rung
It is illegal to pay women less than men for the same job (though it may still happen in some cases). So as well as factors specifically relating to maternity, the question is: what explains the rest of the gender pay gap? International reports on the issue all take on a similar tone – women have made progress in the workplace but more needs to be done. Over the past decade “women have made important gains at every level of the corporate pipeline”, according to the Women in the Workplace report 2024 by consultants McKinsey, “yet progress is surprisingly fragile”. Based on a survey of 281 companies with 10 million employees, it found women today make up 29 per cent of C-suite positions, compared with just 17 per cent in 2015. However, progress has been slower at lower levels, with men still outnumbering women at every level.
While the “glass ceiling” stopping women from getting promotion to the highest level may be no more (the CSO’s Gender Balance in Business Survey has details) McKinsey says that for every 100 men who received their first promotion to manager, just 81 women took the same step – the broken rung, as it calls it, in the corporate ladder, which leaves women lagging behind.
Irish surveys also give some cause for concern – showing progress over time but still a long way from workplace equality. Recent research by Grant Thornton found that more than one in seven businesses had no women in senior management roles. In total just over a third of senior management roles were held by women in middle-sized Irish firms, slightly ahead of the European average. Another international report from Deloitte underlines how many women do not feel supported in the workplace and are not confident in their company’s equality policies.
As well as company policies in relation to hiring and promotion, there are also national issues of particular importance to giving both partners the choice of paid employment. As well as parental leave policies, the cost of childcare, which is relatively high in Ireland, is perhaps the most important. The signs are that post-Covid flexibility around hybrid working has given families new options, but the gender pay gap still remains stubbornly in evidence.
