Men earned nearly €14,000 more than women on average last year, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Mean annual earnings for men were €60,816 in 2023 compared to €46,915 for women, a gender pay gap of close to 23%, unchanged from 2022.
In terms of median annual earnings, the gap was narrower at €8,148 or 17.3%, with men earning €47,187 and women making €39,039.
Weekly earnings for men were €1,011.16 on a mean basis and €770.52 on a median basis. For women, average weekly earnings were €779.12 (mean) or €623.22 (median).
A third (32.1%) of women in employment had weekly earnings of less than €450 compared to one in five (19.4%) among men, and men also held a higher proportion of high-paying jobs.
"In terms of higher earners, 12.8% of employments had weekly earnings of €1,500 or more. Less than one in ten females were in this cohort (8.9%), while 16.8% of males had weekly earnings of €1,500 or more," said Dr Eimean Heffernan, statistician in the earnings analysis division of the CSO.
Overall, median weekly earnings rose by 4.2% from €670.90 in 2022 to €699.28 in 2023 while the gap in earnings between the top (€1,416.22) and bottom (€247.50) 10% stretched to six-fold.
There was a notable difference in the proportion of male employments compared with their female counterparts in the 90th percentile, where males accounted for more than six in ten employments (60.8%)," said Dr Heffernan.
"The opposite was the case among employments in the 20th earnings percentile, where females accounted for more than six in ten employments (60.6%)."
The study also found that a fifth (22.5%) of people working in the information & communication sector, which covers tech and IT, earned more than €2,250 per week.
Conversely, two-thirds (63.2%) of people working in accommodation & food services and more than half in the art (53.2%) had weekly earnings of less than €450
Five economic sectors recorded annual growth in median weekly earnings less than that of the overall annual increase in 2023 (4.2%), including transportation & storage (2.7%), education (3.0%), and public administration & defence (3.6%).
In contrast, the annual increase in median weekly earnings among employments in the professional, scientific & technical activities (6.7%) and information & communication (6.6%) sectors was more than double the increase recorded among employments in both the transportation & storage (2.7%) and the education (3.0%) sectors.
The private sector accounts for eight in 10 (79.1%) employments. Within the private sector, more than six in ten employments had weekly earnings of less than €750 (60.9%), compared with less than three in ten in the public sector (29.3%).
The age distribution of employees in each sector likely had an impact on the earnings estimates provided. The median age among employments within the private sector was 38 years, while the median age among employments in the public sector was higher, at 44 years, in 2023.
In general, weekly earnings tended to increase with age. Employments among those aged 15-24 years accounted for 15.4% of employments in the 10th percentile, compared with less than 1.0% of the 90th percentile (0.4%)," said Dr Heffernan.
"However, those aged 50 years or more represented almost half of the employments in the 10th percentile (47.8%), while those aged 40-49 years accounted for the largest proportion of employments in the 90th percentile, at 35.9%, in 2023.
"In terms of economic sector, employments in the Human Health & Social Work sector represented more than half of the employments in the 10th earnings percentile, at 57.3%, while the Industry (15.6%) and the Information & Communication (21.2%) sectors contributed the largest proportion of employments to the 90th and 95th earnings percentiles, respectively, in 2023.”
