The latest Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures for 2016 shows that 55% of women aged between 25 and 34 have third level qualifications compared to 43% of men in the same age group. The gender wage gap is also widening, with women being paid 14% less than men on average.
In addition, it has been shown that women in their twenties tend to outperform men in the workplace but the roles are reversed once they reach their thirties.
The average age of first time mothers in Ireland is currently 30.5 years, with 445,500 women remaining at home to care for children. Just 9,200 men are stay-at-home parents, up from 4,900 in 2006.
Men also tend to dominate areas such as engineering, manufacturing, construction, and information while women dominate health, welfare, and education sectors. Four out of five graduates in the fields of engineering, manufacturing, and construction graduating in 2016 were men.
In 2016, the majority of Leaving Cert students sitting higher-level French, Irish, biology, chemistry, art and home economics exams were female. On the other hand, more male students sat higher-level maths, physics, design and communication graphics, construction, and engineering.
Men also tend to occupy more positions of power, with women holding 21.4% of local authority seats and 22.2% of Dáil seats in 2016. Women hold 28.7% of national parliament seats across the EU.
