Census records lowest work gender gap ever
The gap between the number of men and women in work is at its lowest since records began.
The Census revealed more than 850,000 women had jobs in April last year, compared with almost 955,000 men.
However unemployment had more than doubled since 2006, with the number of people out of work up to almost 425,000 – a 136% hike.
The data showed more young men went back to education as employment plunged in construction and manufacturing when the building boom went bust.
Elsewhere women filled roles in administration, sales, teaching, personal care and the service industry, said the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The numbers in the labour force available to work rose to more than 2.2 million.
Deirdre Cullen, senior statistician, said the second publication of its highlights from Census 2011 examined social and economic topics such as employment, occupations, education and skills and health-related issues in Ireland in April last year.
“It presents findings on topics such as the changing rate of participation in both the labour force and education of young people, how unemployment has affected various groups and areas over the past five years and how health and social class are related,” she said.
The Census showed there were 81 unemployment blackspots around the country where the jobless rate was up to 39% compared with a national average of 19%.
Limerick city had 18 of the blackspots, followed by Cork city and Donegal with nine each, Dublin city with eight and Waterford city with seven. Elsewhere Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown had the lowest unemployment level.
Married and separated men and separated or single women were most likely to hold down a job.
Almost six out of 10 lone mothers worked while married women and single men had the lowest participation rate.
Overall figures showed there were 122,682 (6.4%) fewer people at work in April 2011 compared with five years previously – based on an increase of 30,011 women at work and decrease of 152,693 men in work.
But in contrast to the sharp drop of 8.4% in Irish nationals in work between 2006 and 2011, the number of non-nationals working rose by 23,670 (9.7%) to 268,000.
Almost 20,000 were Polish and the majority of them were women.
The hotels and restaurants sector had the highest proportion of non-Irish national workers (38%), followed by business activities (19.6%), manufacturing (18.4%) and the wholesale and retail sector (17.8%).
Of 1.8 million people in work, eight out of ten were employees, 17% self employed and the remainder helping a relative.
Almost four in every five jobs were in the service sector, while agriculture employed just 5% of the population – compared with 50% some 90 years earlier.
The number of retired people rose by 21% to 457,000 and the number of women looking after the home or family fell by 48,000.
Another 188,000 adults, and 4,200 children, were also giving unpaid care to a sick loved one in the home while nearly 560,00 people had a disability.
There were 409,000 people aged over 15 years (50.8% women/49.2% men) in education in April 2011.
But data showed an 81% increase in the number of men aged between 25 and 34 years who went back to school and college as male unemployment soared.
Meanwhile figures confirmed a link between unemployment and lack of qualifications.
“The unemployment rate for people who attained at most a primary education was 33.7%,” said the CSO.
“This compared to an unemployment rate of 7.8% for those with a third level degree or higher.”
Elsewhere the Census showed 1.36m households owned a car, with the majority of people driving to work and college, while 74% of homes had a computer and 65.3% had broadband, up from 21%.
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