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Males accounted for 50.9% of all employments active for at least 50 weeks in 2023, while females accounted for 49.1% of all employments.
Males accounted for almost three in every four employments (73.6%) with earnings in the top 1%.
Since 2018, the proportion of females among the top 1% of earners increased by five percentage points from 21.4% in 2018 to 26.4% in 2023.
The Human Health & Social Work sector had the highest proportion of female employments (37.2%) among the top 1% of earners in 2023.
Median annual earnings increased across all age groups, with males recording larger increases in four age cohorts between ages 15 and 49 years. Larger increases in earnings were recorded among females in the 50-59 years (+4.5%) and 60 years and over (+4.0%) age groups.
Dublin had the highest median annual earnings in 2023 at €47,873, which was 10.8% higher than those of the State at €43,221.
Over half of employments with earnings in the top 1% were held by those living in Dublin (56.7%).
This publication provides distributional analysis based on the Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources (EAADS) dataset by gender and county. It presents earnings statistics compiled based on administrative data sources. The primary data source is the Revenue Commissioner’s employee tax data. This is linked to the CSO Business Register and other data to provide economic and demographic breakdowns of employee earnings in Ireland. The data used for this analysis has been restricted to employments that were active in the month of October of the reference year.
The Wage Subsidy Schemes include the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS), which was active for part of 2020, and the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), which was active for part of 2020, all of 2021, and part of 2022.
Please note that the Labour Force Survey is the official source of employment estimates.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (05 November 2024) issued Distribution of Earnings by Gender and County for 2023. Commenting on the data, Dr Eimear Heffernan, Statistician in the Earnings Analysis Division, said:
“This release presents distributional earnings analysis based on the Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources dataset by gender and county of residence in 2023.
Gender Representation in Employments
In 2023, gender representation across total employments was relatively equal. Of employments active for at least 50 weeks of the year, males accounted for 50.9%, while females accounted for 49.1%. This compares with almost three-quarters of employments with earnings in the top 1% which were held by males (73.6%).
During the five-year period between 2018 and 2023, the proportion of females in employments with earnings in the top 1% increased by five percentage points, from 21.4% in 2018 to 26.4% in 2023. During the same period, the proportion of females in employments with earnings in the top 10% increased from 27.8% in 2018 to 30.2% in 2023.
Males represented a higher proportion of the total employments in eight of the 13 economic sectors compared with their female counterparts, however they accounted for the majority of employments the top 1% of earnings across all sectors in 2023.
The greatest disparity between female representation in total employments and those in the top 1% of earnings occurred in the Education and the Human Health & Social Work sectors. In 2023, females represented 72.6% of all employments in the Education sector, compared with 32.2% of employments among those with earnings in the top 1%. Similarly, females represented 76.6% of the Human Health & Social Work sector, while accounting for 37.2% of employments within the top 1% of earnings.
The largest gap in gender representation across employments was recorded among 30-39 year olds, where males accounted for 52.3% of employments, while females accounted for the remaining 47.7%. Among those aged 25-29 years, males accounted for 51.8% of the total employments compared with 48.2% represented by females.
Regional Disparity
In terms of the distribution of earnings by region of residence, Dublin had the highest median annual earnings in 2023 at €47,873. Dublin was followed by Kildare (€46,819), Meath (€44,902), Wicklow (€44,750), and Cork (€44,348), each of which had median annual earnings greater than those of the State (€43,221). The lowest median annual earnings were recorded in Donegal (€35,010), Monaghan (€35,894), and Kerry (€37,151) in 2023.
The highest concentration of employments was recorded in Dublin in 2023, at 30.1%, compared with 5.7% of employments among those in the Midlands region. More than half of employments with earnings in the top 1% were held by those residing in Dublin (56.7%).”