Females Represent 25.2% of top 1% of Earners

Females Represent 25.2% of top 1% of Earners – Distribution of Earnings by Gender and County 2022, CSO

13th December 2023

Posted In: Newsflash | Women Mean Business

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) issues Distribution of Earnings by Gender and County for 2022 and it makes for interesting reading. Among those with annual earnings in the top 1%, 74.8% were male and 25.2% were female (see chart below). Of those in the top 10% of earners, 70.3% were male and 29.7% were female and in the top 25% of earners, males were 61.8% and females were 38.2%.

During the ten years 2012 to 2022, female top earners (ie 1% cohort) increased from 18.7% to 25.2%; however, during the same period, females in the top 25% actually decreased from 39.3% to 38.2%.

There was relatively equal gender representation in employments across all age groups. Although

mean and median annual earnings among females peak at an earlier age than among males.

Last year, Dublin had the highest mean (€60,804) and median (€46,136) annual earnings while the lowest mean (€39,156) and median (€33,523) annual earnings were recorded in Donegal.

Commenting on the data, Dr. Eimear Heffernan, Statistician in the Earnings Analysis Division, CSO said:

“This publication provides distributional earnings analysis based on the Earnings An alysis using Administrative Data Sources dataset by gender and county. In 2022, gender representation across all employments was relatively equal.

The figures show that of all employments active for at least 50 weeks in 2022, males represented 51.3% and females represented 48.7%.

In contrast, among those with annual earnings in the top 1%, 74.8% were male and 25.2% were female. In the top 10 % of earners, 70.3% were male and 29.7% were female and in the top 25% of earners, males were 61.8% and females were 38.2%.

The proportion of females in the top 1% of earners has increased by 6.5 percentage points from 18.7% in 2012 to 25.2% in 2022. During the same period, the proportion of females in the top 10% of earners increased by 0.9 percentage points from 28.8% to 29.7% while the proportion of females in the top 25% of earnings decreased by 1.1 percentage points from 39.3% to 38.2% over the ten years from 2012 to 2022.

Males represented a higher proportion of the workforce across all employments in eight of the 13 economic sectors, while they accounted for the majority (74.8%) of the top 1% of earners across all sectors.

The greatest disparity between female representation in employments and those in the top 1% of earnings occurs in the Education and Health sectors.

In 2022, females represented 72.5% of all employments in the Education sector. However, 29% of employments among those with earnings in the top 1% of this sector were represented by females.

Similarly, females represented 76.5% of the Human Health & Social Work sector, while occupying 35% of employments within the top 1% of earnings.

There was relatively equal gender representation in employments across all age groups. Both mean and median annual earnings among females peak at an earlier age than among males.

In terms of regional distribution, Dublin had the highest median annual earnings at €46,136, while the lowest median annual earnings were recorded in Donegal at €33,523,” Dr. Heffernan noted.

You can find out more from the CSO here>>

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