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 this week 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 (six per cent ) than males (four per cent ) 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 that 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 were that from 1996 to 2006, graduates of NFQ levels 6 & 7 (certificates and 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. Forty-five per cent of graduates of the class of 1996 continued with further study, while 72 per cent of the class of 2006 continued to further study.
As in 2005, Dublin (220 per cent ) and Galway (110 per cent ) are the only counties to employ more graduates than they produce.
It also showed that 75 per cent of graduates of teaching/education courses are female.
Ninety per cent 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 per cent of these went to UK institutions.
PhD graduates are the largest percentage of employed graduates to leave Ireland to pursue employment at 20.6 per cent. Close working contact with researchers abroad contributes to the professional development of PhD graduates educated in Irish higher institutions and widens their career prospects.
