Men still out-earning women in strong labour market for graduates
Just 17.3% of female graduates were earning €50k to €80k or more — compared to the 28% of male graduates earning that amount. And 43.8% of male graduates were earning €25k to €40k compared to 51.8% of female graduates earning that amount. Stock picture
There was a further increase in employment levels among those who graduated last year, according to a new survey.
However, male graduates still far out-earn their female counterparts.
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) graduate outcomes survey for the class of 2022 found that more graduates are employed and fewer are pursuing further study compared to those in 2021 and 2020.
Some 70,818 people graduated across 23 higher education institutions with the survey having an overall response rate of 49.6%.
Overall, 83% of graduates were in employment nine months after graduation, up from 81.9% for the class of 2021, and 75.9% for the class of 2020.
Two-thirds (66%) of those who graduated last year considered their course to be relevant to their job.
The number of male graduates has decreased by 2% since 2017 with female graduates increasing by 2% in the same period, accounting for 54.5% of all graduates in 2022.
Overall, the most common fields of study were business, administration and law (26.0%), health and welfare (15.8%), and arts and humanities (11.5%). Employment was found to be highest among education graduates (93.9%) and lowest for arts & humanities graduates (66.3%).
When broken down by gender, just 17.3% of female graduates were earning between €50,000 and €80,000 or more compared to 28% of male graduates who were earning that amount.
Some 43.8% of male graduates were earning between €25,000 and €40,000 compared to 51.8% of female graduates earning that amount.
Male graduates dwarfed their female counterparts as the top earners with 8.7% earning above €80,000 compared to 3.3% of female graduates in the same cohort.
Similarly, 1.9% of male graduates were earning between €15,000 and €20,000 compared to 3.7% of female graduates earning that amount.
Overall, half of graduates were earning between €30,000 to €50,000 while just over one-fifth (20.7%) were earning between €20,000 and €30,000.
More than one-fifth of graduates in 2022 (22.4%) were earning between €50,000 and over €80,000, according to the survey.
Separately, slightly more graduates are seeking employment overseas with 90.4% of graduates working in Ireland, down from 91.7% in 2021 and 92.2% in 2020.
Most graduates were working in Dublin at the time of the survey (45.7%) followed by Cork (13.4%), Galway (6.7%) and Limerick (5.4%).
Some 4.4% of graduates were unemployed nine months after graduation, up from 4.2% for the Class of 2021 with unemployment rates being the highest in information and communication technology (8.0%) and arts and humanities (7.4%).
Technological universities had higher employment rates than universities which the HEA put down to more technological university graduates tending to go directly into employment rather than pursue further study.
Between 82% and 87% of undergraduate graduates from technological universities were in employment nine months after graduation whereas this figure was between 64% – 85% for universities.
The proportion of graduates pursuing further study has decreased to 10.2% for the class of 2022, down from 11.9% for the class of 2021 Higher Education Authority CEO Alan Wall said the report shows that employment rates for graduates continue to increase “showing the value of a higher education qualification.”
