In 2025, gender representation across total employments was relatively equal; of the employments active for at least 50 weeks of the reference year, 50.6% were represented by males while 49.4% 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 60.7% while females accounted for 39.3%. Similarly, males represented almost three-quarters (71.9%) of employments with earnings in the top 1%, while the corresponding figure for females was 28.1%. It is worth noting that the proportion of employments with earnings in the top 1% represented by females increased by 8.1 percentage points in the decade since 2015 (20.0%) and 3.3 percentage points since 2020 (24.8%).
Figure 2.2 presents the gender representation across each economic sector at various earnings levels. In 2025, 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 the earnings levels analysed. In this male-dominated sector, males accounted for 84.3% of total employments, while the remaining 15.7% of employments were held by females. Among the top earners employed in this sector, most were males (91.8%), compared with females (8.2%).
In contrast, the greatest disparity between female representation in total employments and those in the top 1% of earnings occurred in the Education sector. In 2025, females represented almost three-quarters (73.2%) of all employments in Education, compared with 34.8% of employments among those with earnings in the top 1%. Similarly, females accounted for 76.2% of employments in the Human Health & Social Work sector, while accounting for 38.7% of employments within the top 1% of earnings.
The highest median annual earnings in 2025 were recorded in Dublin at €50,474, followed by Kildare (€50,043), Cork (€48,328), Meath (€48,011), Wicklow (€48,000), and Limerick (€46,426). These six counties had median annual earnings greater than those of the State at €46,305. The lowest median annual earnings were recorded in Monaghan (€38,517), Donegal (€38,739), and Kerry (€40,440) in 2025.
The disparity in median annual earnings recorded for employments among males and females varied by county. In 2025, employments among males (€46,154) in Sligo recorded annual earnings 8.5% higher than those among females (€42,525), while in Meath median annual earnings among males (€53,952) were 30.0% higher than their female counterparts (€41,502).
The highest concentration of employments was recorded in Dublin in 2025. Almost one-third (29.5%) of the total employments were held by employees living in Dublin, while a further 14.6% of employments were occupied by those living in the Mid-East (Kildare, Louth, Meath, and Wicklow). This compares with 5.8% of employments among those living in the Midlands region (Laois, Longford, Offaly, and Westmeath). More than half of employments with earnings in the top 1% were held by those residing in Dublin (54.9%), in contrast with the Border (Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, and Sligo) and Midlands regions which, combined, represented 4.3% of the top earners.
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