Irish women with degrees earn double those without
According to the OECD, the 90% earnings premium associated with a higher education qualification for women in Ireland compares to an average of just 62% in other developed countries. And on average, across the more than 30 other countries, men boost their earnings by more than women, with a 64% increase in earnings for males with a third-level education.
But, at 69%, it was also above-average for Irish men, reflecting the significant advantages of holding a college degree. However, the differences for males and females might equally be reflective of lower pay rates for medium- or low-skilled work, a topic promised to be addressed in the revised government priorities in the summer. The OECD’s Education at a Glance 2014 report shows that Ireland has seen one of the biggest improvements in higher education participation.
Only Japan, Poland and Korea have a bigger difference between the proportion of 25 to 34-year-olds and of those aged 55 to 64 with third-level qualifications. Canada, Japan, Korea and Luxembourg had more people in the younger age bracket than the 49% here had graduated from third-level.
At the other end of the scale, however, a growing proportion of young adults are at risk of falling between the cracks. Irish people in their late teens and their 20s are nearly one-and-a-half times more likely than in other developed countries to be neither working or studying. The rate here dropped slightly, from 22% to 21%, between 2011 and 2012. But the average across the OECD — and in the 21 EU countries in the OECD — was just 15%.
Fianna Fáil education spokesperson Charlie McConalogue said the Government seemed to be doing very little to change these worrying numbers of young people who are not in work, college or training.
“Over the past four years, it seems as if the Government has set out to deliberately make it more difficult for young people to go to college and university. Cuts to maintenance grants and the abolition of supports for postgraduate students have significantly restricted access to third-level education,” he said.
The issue was flagged recently by the Nevin Economic Research Institute, whose director Tom Healy pointed to recent Eurostat data showing that 20.5% of Irish 18 to 24 year olds were in this ‘not in employment, education or training’ (NEET) category last year. But, while it is down nationally from 23%, it remains at over 25% among young people in the border, Midlands and western region, compared to under 19% in the south and east of the country.
