Female graduates excel but still on lower salaries

Female Honours Bachelor Degree graduates are performing better academically and are more likely to be employed than their male counterparts but are still, on average, ending up with lower salaries, according to the report, What Do Graduates Do? The Class of 2006, published today by the Higher Education Authority (HEA).
 
Females are more likely to achieve the highest award class (First Class Honours) in almost every faculty (except Veterinary Medicine and Architecture), furthermore more females than males gained employment nine months after graduation, however these higher grades and greater employment levels for females are not borne out by salaries.  More females (6%) than males (4%) reported earning less than €12,999 (lowest salary bracket) while twice as many males as females reported earning over €45,000 (highest salary bracket). 
 
HEA Chairman, Michael Kelly, said “Despite continuing higher academic achievement by females and greater employment rates, a gender bias in salaries in favour of males continues to persist for Honours Bachelor Degree graduates. Glass ceilings are being shattered in education but not to the same extent in the workplace.”
 
The Annual Survey compiled by the HEA looks at 23,566 students who graduated in 2006 and what they are doing nine months later. It covers graduates of the universities, institutes of technology and other institutions in the public and private sectors.
 
Among the other findings in the report –

• From 1996 to 2006, graduates of NFQ levels 6 & 7 (Certificates & Ordinary Bachelor Degrees) have experienced decreasing rates of employment, however the shortfall has been made up by increasing rates of further study. These types of qualifications provide a pathway to the traditional Higher Education qualification, the Honours Bachelor Degrees. 45% of graduates of the Class of 1996 continued with further study, while 72% of the class of 2006 continued to further study.
  
• As in 2005, Dublin (220%) and Galway (110%) are the only counties to employ more graduates than they produce. 
  
• Over 75% of graduates of teaching/education courses are female. 
  
• 90% of graduates who originated from the Republic of Ireland and who continued with further studies studied in Institutions in the Republic of Ireland with the remaining population going overseas for further studies options, 7.1% of these went to UK institutions. 
  
• PhD graduates are the largest percentage of employed graduates to leave Ireland to pursue employment at 20.6%. Close working contact with researchers abroad contributes to the professional development of PhD graduates educated in Irish Higher institutions and widens their career prospects. 

The Higher Education Authority is the independent statutory body charged with advising Government on higher education policy and for funding our universities and third level colleges. (Source - www.hea.ie)

Click here to view the report in full.