Dublin reports 5% gender pay gap among City Council employees, and most are male

With the Gender Pay Gap Information Act, companies with more than 250 workers have to publish an annual report on the subject with a unified methodology

On Monday, Irish organizations and firms with more than 250 workers published data on their gender pay gap under the Gender Pay Gap Information Act of 2021. Among them was Dublin City Council, which reported a low 4.83% average and 5.65% median pay gap. Median, in this case, means a comparison between the median male hourly rate (the borderline between the highest and lowest pay for workers on a 50-50 split) and female hourly rate. 

Dublin’s local government also reported that it had a predominantly male workforce (more than 70%), both full-time and part-time workers. The report took a ‘snapshot’ of employees’ hourly wages on 18 June 2022.

The 2021 Act is a national law mandating all companies with more than 250 employees to make data on the topic publicly available on their websites. Additionally, companies are also required to publish plans on how to mitigate that difference in the future.

With the Gender Pay Gap reports being a yearly event with a unified methodology across sectors, public authorities and the citizenry can have an accurate and transparent view of companies’ policies and progress.

The pay gap in Dublin City Council

Even though the Dublin City Council's gap is lower than the Irish national average of around 11% (according to Eurostat from 2019), authorities say that only around 30% of all municipal employees are female.

This figure is largely similar across all wage quintiles, with the exception of the highest-paid group, where women make up only 20.15%. According to the report, this disparity is largely due to the fact that a lot of municipal jobs are occupied by operational roles, where 88% of workers are male. These include craft workers and the Fire Brigade, for example, professions traditionally viewed as male.

To mitigate the gap, the City Council plans on attracting more female workers to traditional male roles, including crafts and the Fire Brigade. Additionally, they also offer social benefits like flexible working and leave options, including carer’s leave, career breaks, paid maternity and adoptive leave, paid paternity leave, parental leave, shorter working year schemes, and work-sharing.

Other public companies and their wage gap reports

Apart from the city council, other entities like the RTÉ, Ireland’s public broadcaster and An Post, the postal service, reported their gender wage gap. The RTÉ reported a 13.03% median gap, in favour of men, which dropped to 6.79% when positions with overtime were excluded.

Moreover, there was an average gender pay gap of 11.55% which reduces to 10% when roles with overtime are excluded. At the same time, there was a gap of 17% in favour of women among part-time staff.

At the same time, on 30 November, An Post reported a zero gender pay gap for the second year in a row, with female staff increasing from 33% to 41% in just one year. The only significant disparity in the postal service comes in roles for postal sorting, collection and delivery operations staff where 13% are female compared to 87% male.