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Introduction

 Preface

 

Welcome to the 2013 edition and ninth publication of Women and Men in Ireland and the first edition designed for mobile devices and the web. The CSO started a program of publishing releases in this way at the start of 2013 and now almost all releases are being published for the web. Women and Men in Ireland is the second major publication to be published this way, (the first was Measuring Ireland’s Progress 2012), and we would welcome feedback, both in terms of the content and the layout, as an input into the further development of both Women and Men in Ireland and electronic publications in general in the CSO.

 

The progress indicators used in this report were chosen because they help to:

  • Identify important gender differences in the activities of men and women.
  • Assist users to identify the underlying reasons that explain these differences.
  • Present the situation in Ireland in an international context.

 

 

Outline

 

This web-based edition of Women and Men in Ireland has been re-organised so that the 70 indicators are presented in five themes:

 

            Society

            Employment

            Social cohesion and lifestyles

            Education

            Health

 

Most indicators are presented in both a national and international context. The national context in generally in a time series format while the international context compares Ireland with other EU countries, and where available with three EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and two official candidate countries (Macedonia and Turkey).

 

In cases where tables are not sorted by year, the ranking variable is highlighted with a darker background. The appendices describe the indicator definitions and data sources in greater detail.

 

Where a graph and/or map is available for an indicator this will be indicated below the text for that indicator.

 

 

Highlights 

 

Irish women are more likely to have a third-level qualification than men. More than half of women aged between 25 and 35 have a third-level qualification compared with just over four out of ten men. Men work longer hours than women in paid employment.

 

Irish women, along with women from France, have the joint highest fertility rate in the EU. Boys are more likely to leave school early. Men have a higher rate of employment but also a higher rate of unemployment. Men are more likely to be in the labour force and those looking after home/family are overwhelmingly female. Most workers in the Health and Education sectors are women while most workers in Agriculture, Construction and Transport are men. Most murder victims are male and the vast majority of the prison population is male. Ireland is the ninth highest among EU27 countries for gender equality.

 

Employment: The employment rate for men in Ireland stood at about 76% in recent years but in 2009 it dropped sharply to 66.8% and continued to decrease over the next three years to reach 62.4% by 2012. However in 2013 there was an increase in the male employment rate to 64.6% followed by another rise in 2014 to 65.7%. The female employment rate reached 60.6% in 2007 before dropping to 57.6% in 2009 and it continued to decrease over the next three years to stand at 55.2% by 2012. The last 2 years have seen a small rise in the female employment rate to 55.9% in 2014.

 

Men worked an average of 39.2 hours a week in paid employment in 2013 compared to 31.2 hours for women and married men worked longer hours than married women, with close to half of married men (44.1%) working for 40 hours a week or more compared to just 16.8% of married women. (Tables 2.1, 2.8 and 2.9)

 

Unemployment: The unemployment rate for men in Ireland was about 5% in recent years but in 2009 it increased dramatically to 15.3%, followed by further rises over the following three years to reach 18.1% by 2012. There was a drop in the male unemployment rate in 2013 to 15.9% and another decrease in 2014 to 13.8%.  The female unemployment rate, which stood at about 4% in recent years, also increased strongly to 8.3% in 2009 and continued to rise over the next four years to reach 11.4% in 2013. However the female rate of unemployment decreased in 2014 to 9.9%. The younger age groups have been most affected by unemployment, with approximately three out of ten men and two out of ten women aged 20-24 unemployed in 2013. (Tables 2.11 and 2.12)

 

Education: The early school leavers' rate among women aged 18-24 in 2012 was 8.2% which was lower than the rate of 11.2% for men. In 2013 more girls than boys sat higher level papers in the Leaving Certificate exams in English, French, Irish, Biology, Chemistry, Art, Home Economics and Music. More boys than girls took the higher level papers in Mathematics, Physics, Construction studies, Design and communication graphics and Engineering. The vast majority (85%) of graduates in engineering, manufacturing and construction in 2012 were male while over three-quarters of graduates in the education, health and welfare sectors were female. Women are more likely to have a third-level qualification, with over half (55.3%) of women aged 25-34 having a third-level qualification in 2013 compared to just 42.7% of men in this age group. (Tables 3.8, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.4)

 

Decision-making:  Women are significantly under-represented in decision-making structures in Ireland at both national and regional levels. In 2013 only 15.7% of TDs in Dáil Éireann were women and they accounted for less than a fifth of members of local authorities and just over a third of the membership of Vocational Education Committees. The average female representation in national parliaments in the EU was 27.5% in 2013. (Tables 3.12 and 3.13)

 

Population: Ireland, along with France, had the joint highest fertility rate in the EU at 2.01 in 2012, well above the EU average of 1.58. The average age at which women gave birth to their first child rose from 24.9 years in 1980 to 29.8 years in 2011. Ireland had 98 men per 100 women in 2013. This masks differences in age groups: at younger ages, there are more boys than girls (as more boys are born), there are fewer men in the 25-44 age group as more men have emigrated in recent years and at older ages there are more women (as women live longer). For the age group aged 85 and over, there are 48 men per 100 women. (Tables 1.1, 1.5 and 1.6)

 

Migration: The years of high immigration into Ireland were 2005 to 2008. In 2007, immigration peaked at 80,000 for men and 71,100 for women. Since then, immigration has fallen very sharply for both sexes with 28,200 male immigrants and 27,700 female immigrants in 2013. Emigration rose steeply between 2004 and 2013, to 44,900 males and 44,000 females. Net migration, the number of people arriving in Ireland less the number leaving, was positive up to 2009 but since 2010 it has turned negative, resulting in a net outflow leaving Ireland of 16,700 males and 16,300 females in 2013. (Table 1.3, Graph 1.4)

 

Life and death: Life expectancy at birth for women in Ireland was 83.2 years in 2012, 4.5 years above the male life expectancy of 78.7 years. Female life expectancy in Ireland was similar to the EU average while male life expectancy was 1.2 years above the EU average. Men are more likely to die at a younger age than women, with the difference in risk particularly high in the 15-24 age group. This reflects higher deaths rates for males due to suicide and motor vehicle accidents. (Tables 1.13, 5.2, 5.3 and 5.5)

 

Gender Equality Index: A new index, the gender equality index, shows Ireland was ninth highest out of 27 EU member states in 2010, with a score of 55.2. This was slightly above the EU27 average score of 54, where 1 indicates total inequality and 100 indicates gender equality. (Table 1.7)

 

Principal Economic Status: Men were more likely to be in the labour force than women in Ireland in 2013, with just under seven out of ten men aged 15 and over at work or unemployed compared to half of women. More than 98% of those who were looking after home/family in 2013 were women, with close to half a million women looking after home/family compared to only 8,700 men. (Table 3.1)

 

Economic sectors: Over a third of women at work in Ireland in 2012 were working in the health and education sectors. Women accounted for four out of five employees in the health sector and three-quarters of those at work in education. The sectors with the highest proportions of men in 2012 were construction, agriculture and transport. In primary education 85% of teachers are female while 68% are female at second-level. However women are not well represented at senior levels: 44% of primary school managers, 41% of second-level school managers and 37% of medical and dental consultants are women. (Tables 2.7, 4.7, 4.8 and 5.14)

 

Income and poverty:  Women’s income in 2011 in Ireland was about three-quarters of men’s income. After adjusting for the longer hours worked by men, women’s hourly earnings were around 94% of men’s in 2011. The proportion of men at risk of poverty in 2012, after pensions and social transfers, was 15%, the same rate as for women. At risk of poverty rates were much lower for those in employment at 7% for men and 5% for women in 2011. (Tables 3.2, 3.3, 3.5 and 3.6)

 

Crime: There were 13,526 persons committed to prison under sentence in 2012, of whom one in six were women. 43 men and 11 women were victims of murder or manslaughter in 2013. (Tables 1.8 and 1.10)

 

 

Technical notes

 

While many of the national data are compiled by the CSO, we have also used survey and administrative data holdings held by Government departments and agencies wherever appropriate and possible. The data in the tables and graphs reflect the national and international data availability position as of the first half of 2014.

 

Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) results for all years are presented for Q2 (quarter two) with the exception of some tables which also include data for Q1 from 2014 (as Q2 data for 2014 is not yet published).

 

The following symbols are used:

: data not available.

*data not reliable.

 

Some tables which use QNHS data as their data source have parentheses ( i.e., [ ] ), around data in cells which are based on samples of between 30 to 49 persons as they are considered to have a wider margin of error and thus they should be treated with caution.