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In 2023, gender representation across total employments was relatively equal; 50.9% of total employments were represented by males while 49.1% were represented by females.
There was greater disparity in gender representation among high earners. Among employments with earnings in the top 25%, males accounted for 61.5% while females accounted for 38.5%. Among employments with earnings in the top 1%, males represented 73.6%, while the corresponding figure for females was 26.4% (See Figure 2.1).
The proportion of females in the top 1% of earners in 2023 was 26.4%, representing an increase of 6.9 percentage points in the decade since 2013 (19.5%), and an increase of 5.0 percentage points since 2018 (21.4%) (See Table 2.1).
Figure 2.2 presents the gender representation across each economic sector at various earnings levels. In 2023, males represented a higher proportion of the total employments in eight of the 13 economic sectors compared with females, however they accounted for the majority of the top 1% of earnings across all sectors.
In the Construction sector, the gender representation was relatively consistent across all earnings levels analysed. In this male dominated sector, males accounted for 85.9% of total employments, while the remaining 14.1% of employments were held by females. Among the top earners employed in this sector, most were males (94.7%), compared with females (5.3%).
In contrast, the greatest disparity between female representation in total employments and those in the top 1% of earnings was recorded in the Education and the Human Health & Social Work sectors. In 2023, females represented 72.6% of the total employments in the Education sector, while 32.2% of employments among those with earnings in the top 1% were represented by females in this sector. Similarly, in the Human Health & Social Work sector females represented more than three quarters (76.6%) of the employments, while accounting for 37.2% of employments within the top 1% of earnings.
Females accounted for the largest proportion of employments among only one age group in 2023; 15-24 years (50.3%), compared with their male counterparts (49.7%). Males represented a larger proportion of employments across all other age categories, with the highest proportions among the 25-29 years and 30-39 years age groups (See Table 2.3).
Median annual earnings were lowest among the 15-24 years age group for both males (€23,658) and females (€20,382). Highest median annual earnings for males in 2023 were recorded in the 40-49 years age group at €54,464. This was 24.4% higher than earnings among female employments in the corresponding age group (€43,792). Similar to 2022, the highest median annual earnings among females were recorded in the 30-39 years age cohort in 2023 (€44,133) (See Figure 2.3).
The highest median annual earnings in 2023 were recorded in Dublin at €47,873, followed by Kildare (€46,819), Meath (€44,902), Wicklow (€44,750), and Cork (€44,348). These five counties had median annual earnings greater than those of the State at €43,221. The lowest median annual earnings were recorded in Donegal (€35,010), Monaghan (€35,894), and Kerry (€37,151) in 2023 (See Table 2.8).
The highest concentration of employments was recorded in Dublin in 2023, at 30.1%, compared with 5.7% of employments among those living in the Midlands region. Over half of employments with earnings in the top 1% were held by those residing in Dublin (56.7%), in contrast with the Border and Midlands regions which represented 2% of the top earners, respectively (See Figure 2.4).
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