As Irish corporates prepare for new gender pay legislation, female graduates still expect up to 14 percent less pay than male counterparts.
Female graduates still expect to earn up to 14 percent less than their male counterparts, with those entering the legal profession experiencing the largest gap in salary expectations, according to new research published by employer branding experts Universum, part of hiring platform IrishJobs.ie.
The research, conducted amongst 10,043 Irish-based third-level students across seven different disciplines of study, suggests a clear disparity in salary expectations between the two genders, particularly across law (14%), business and economics (8%) and natural sciences (8%). Health and medical (7%), I.T. (7%), humanities (6%) and engineering (5%) also recorded gender salary disparities.
Gender pay legislation
This new research is published just weeks after new gender pay legislation (Gender Pay Gap Information Bill 2019) was signed into law. Under the new legislation, which is expected to take effect from 01 January 2022, companies that employ more than 250 people will be required to publish data on differences in gender pay and to outline how they intend to address any potential disparity.
Salary expectations by sector
According to the research, law graduates have the highest starting salary expectations overall (‚¬38,702), with male graduates expecting ‚¬41,758 and female graduates expecting ‚¬35,730. Law was also the only discipline to see the gap in gender pay expectations grow year on year (14% in 2021 versus 12% in 2020).
The second highest salary expectations recorded were in engineering (‚¬38,181), however, this represents a modest year-on-year two percent decrease in salary expectations (‚¬38,956 in 2020). Within this, male graduates expect ‚¬39,3446 and female graduates typically expect ‚¬37,388 per annum.
IT was the only other sector to see a year-on-year decrease (-1.6%) in salary expectations.
Universum insight
Steve Ward, UK, and Ireland Business Director for Universum said:
“Graduate salary expectations are on the rise this year overall, and this will be welcome news amongst third-level students and recent graduates. However, despite the new Government legislation due to come into effect early next year, today’s research demonstrates a clear gap in salary expectations between Irish male and female graduates.
“This continued trend is very concerning. As research continuously tells us, this disparity in salary expectations between male and female graduates only becomes more pronounced as the two genders climb the career ladder and progress through the corporate world.
“The new gender pay legislation is a welcome step toward addressing this disparity. However, we would encourage employers to get ahead of this legislation and look at what steps they can take in the near future to ensure they’re part of the solution, and not part of the problem. This means reviewing their own internal hiring processes and remuneration data on an ongoing basis and taking a transparent and proactive approach to addressing any emerging disparities, be that gender or otherwise.
“Equally, we would encourage recent graduates, and particularly female graduates, to undertake meaningful research into the available salaries in their field and where possible, to then use this research to their advantage when interviewing for roles.”