Female graduates still earning less, report shows

FEMALE honours graduates perform better academically and are more employable than their male counterparts yet are still, on average, ending up with lower salaries, a report has claimed.

What Do Graduates Do? The Class of 2006, published by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), said women were more likely to achieve first-class honours in almost every faculty except veterinary medicine and architecture.

It also found that more women than men found a job within nine months after graduation.

However, the higher grades and greater employment levels for women are not being borne out by salaries.

More females (6%) than males (4%) reported earning less than €12,999 (lowest salary bracket), while twice as many males as females reported earning over €45,000 (highest salary bracket).

HEA chairman Michael Kelly said: “Despite continuing higher academic achievement by females and greater employment rates, a gender bias in salaries in favour of males continues to persist for honours bachelor degree graduates.

“Glass ceilings are being shattered in education, but not to the same extent in the workplace.”

The annual survey compiled by the HEA looked at 23,566 students who graduated in 2006 and what they were doing nine months later. It covered graduates of the universities, institutes of technology and other institutions in the public and private sectors.

Among the other statistics the report discovered were:

* As in 2005, Dublin (220%) and Galway (110%) are the only counties to employ more graduates than they produce.

* More than 75% of graduates of teaching/education courses are female.

* 90% of graduates who originated from Ireland and who continued with further studies went to institutions in the republic, with the remaining population going overseas for further studies options.

Of those, 7.1% of went to British institutions.

* PhD graduates are the largest percentage of employed graduates to leave Ireland to pursue employment at 20.6%.

The HEA said close working contact with researchers abroad contributes to the professional development of PhD graduates educated in Irish higher institutions and widens their career prospects.

Earlier this year a book unveiled by the National Women’s Council claimed newly graduated women are earning an average of 11% less than their male counterparts. In, Where are We Now? New Feminist Perspectives on Women in Contemporary Ireland, Ursula Barry said: “Within the pay system, women continue to experience discrimination across the economy.

“Even among recent graduates from the third-level system, women’s pay is on average 11% below that of male graduates where the average gender pay gap is 16%.”