Women and Men in Ireland 2016

• The language subjects of English, French and Irish were more popular at higher level with girls than boys. More than seven in ten girls (72.2%) sitting the Leaving certificate took English at higher level compared with 59.2% of boys.

• More than half (55.7%) of girls took higher level Biology compared with 34.8% of boys.

• Higher level mathematics was taken by 28.9% of boys, compared to 25.7% of girls.

• Just under a quarter of all boys took higher level Construction studies in the Leaving Certificate compared to just 2.2% of girls.

• Design and communications graphics and Engineering were also more popular with boys than girls. Only 1.9% of girls took higher level Design and communications graphics compared with 13.8% of boys.

• About one in six boys sitting the Leaving Certificate took higher level Engineering compared to less than 1% of girls.

• Art, Home economics and Music at higher level were much more likely to be taken by girls. Nearly three in ten girls took higher level Home economics compared to about 3 in 100 boys while higher level Art was taken by 19.7% of girls compared with 8.3% of boys.

• Women represented 52.2 % of all third-level graduates in Ireland in 2016.

• One in four (25.5%) female graduates were in Health and welfare while just under one in four (23.4%) were in Business, administration and law.

• One in four (25.8%) male graduates were in Business, administration and law while 18% were in Engineering, manufacturing and construction.

• Women represented more than three out of four (76.4%) graduates in Health and welfare and 71.4% of graduates in education.

• More than four out of five (82.4%) graduates in Engineering, manufacturing and construction were male while 79.3% of graduates in Information and communication technologies were male.

• The proportion of students among women in the 18-24 age group rose by over 10 percentage points between 2011 and 2016, from 44.9% to 55.1%.

• Over the same time period, the proportion of students among men in the 18-24 age group rose by just under 6 percentage points, from 43.7% to 49.6%.

• In 2016 more young women than men were students and this difference was most pronounced for 20 year olds where 68.5% of women were students compared to 48% of men.

• The percentage of men and women aged 25-34 with a third level qualification increased over the period 2007 to 2016.

• More women than men have a third level qualification but the gap narrowed slightly over the period 2007 to 2016.

• The percentage of men aged 25-34 with a third level qualification increased from 34.3% in 2007 to 42.9% in 2016, an increase of 8.6 percentage points.

• The percentage of women aged 25-34 with a third level qualification increased from 47.6% in 2007 to 55.1% in 2016, a rise of 7.5 percentage points.

• More women aged 35-64 had third level education in 2016 than men, with 41.9% of women being educated to at least degree level compared with 35.6% of men.

• Just over a quarter of men aged 35-64 in 2016 had at most lower secondary education compared to 20.3% of women.

• Women accounted for 87% of teachers at primary level in Ireland in 2015, an increase of 4.1 percentage points since 2006.

• At second level, women accounted for 71% of teachers in 2015, which was an increase of 8.9 percentage points since 2006.

• In 2015 13% of primary school teachers in Ireland were men. The highest reported levels of male participation at primary level among other EU countries were in Denmark and Greece where about 30% of all primary teachers were male.

• Lithuania and Slovenia had the lowest levels of male teachers at primary level in the EU at just 2.8%.

• In Ireland 29% of second level teachers were male in 2015, below the EU average of 36%.

• At third level in Ireland 56% of academic staff were male in 2015.

• The majority of teachers at primary and second level in 2015 were female in all EU countries. However at third level, the majority of academic staff were male in EU countries with the exceptions of Lithuania, Latvia and Finland.

• There were more women than men in school management positions at primary level in Ireland in 2015 with 59% of these positions taken by women.

• The proportion of primary school managers who were female in the reporting countries varied from 40.8% in Greece to 96% in Lithuania.

• In Ireland in 2015 less than half (44.3%) of second-level school management personnel were female.

• Of the EU countries for which data was available, Luxembourg had the lowest proportion of female school managers at upper secondary level at 29.5% while Lithuania had the highest at 74.3%.

Go to next chapter >>> Health