Women in Ireland live longer but continue to earn less than men, and continue to be under-represented across a range of sectors in the workplace and public life, a new report shows.
The details were published in the Central Statistics Office's report Women and Men in Ireland 2010 today.
Life expectancy for women was 81.6 years in 2006, compared with 76.8 years for men.
Women’s annual income was about 70 per cent of that earned by men in 2008, though after adjusting for time worked, women’s hourly earnings were around 90 per cent of men’s, the report says.
Men have a higher rate of employment, but also a higher rate of unemployment.
The employment rate for men in Ireland stood at about 75 per cent over recent years, but in 2009 it “plummeted” to 67.3 per cent and dropped again last year to 64.5 per cent, the CSO said.
The EU target rate for women in employment is 60 per cent by 2010, a target that was met by Ireland in 2007 and 2008, but not in 2009 or 2010, when the rate had fallen to 56.4 per cent.
Last year, 46 per cent of those in employment were women.
There were 863,000 women and 996,100 men employed here. Just over one fifth of the women were employed in clerical and secretarial occupations, compared with only 6 per cent of the men.
Professional occupations were the most gender balanced, where 51 per cent of those at work were female.
Women are under-represented relative to men in local and regional authorities and in the Oireachtas.
In contrast, most workers in the health and education sectors are women and the “vast majority” of those looking after home and family are women.
Other notable facts in the report reveal that more men are emigrating, and that men are more likely to die young.
Men leave school earlier and women are more highly qualified.
In education, the early school-leaving rate among women aged 18-24 in 2009 was 8.2 per cent, compared to a rate for males of 14.4 per cent.
Higher numbers of girls took English, Irish, French, Biology, Home economics and Art at higher level in the 2010 Leaving Certificate, while boys had higher rates of participation in technical subjects.
Over 89 per cent of Leaving Certificate students taking higher level Design and communication graphics, construction studies and engineering were male.
The pattern continues at third level, with men accounting for about 84 per cent of graduates in engineering, manufacturing and construction and 59 per cent of graduates in science.
Women accounted for 82 per cent of graduates in health and welfare, 76 per cent in education, and 66 per cent in arts and humanities.
Women are more likely to have a third-level qualification, with over half (52 per cent) of women aged 25-34 having a third-level qualification compared with 39 per cent of men in this age group.
One area where men continue to outnumber women is in the prison population.
Some 10,865 people were imprisoned in 2009, of whom 10.7 per cent were women. A total of 45 men and 10 women were victims of murder/manslaughter in 2008, the report says.