The latest Women in NI statistical publication was released today by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (NISRA).
The Women in NI release coincides with International Women’s Day 2022, which is a global day celebrating the achievements of women and the theme for 2022 is ‘breaking the bias’.
The publication considers the different labour market experiences of women and men in Northern Ireland. A consistent feature of the labour market is higher economic inactivity rates for females, and higher employment and unemployment rates for males. These features are explored, where the publication contains estimates from the Labour Force Survey, relating to the period July 2020 to June 2021, alongside other applicable data sources.
Lower number of females are self-employed than males
The employment rate for females in NI has been consistently lower than for males over the past ten years. The difference is driven by lower self-employment rates for women compared to men. The number of self-employed males in 2021 was more than two and a half times the number of self-employed females.
Females were less likely to work full-time than males. Furthermore, approximately 60% of employed women with dependent children worked full-time, compared to 94% of employed males with dependent children.
On average women earn less than men
The gap in female and male earnings has decreased over the past 20 years, and in 2021 females earned 5.7% less than males in NI. The largest gender pay gap across all age groups occurred in the 50 to 59 age group, where men earned almost £2.50 more per hour than women (£15.33 compared to £12.87), and equivalent to a 16.0% pay gap.
A lower proportion of females than males received earnings above the Real Living Wage (by 5 percentage points) and females also reported lower levels of opportunities for career progression (by 9pps).
Female economic inactivity rate consistently higher than males over last decade
Although the female economic inactivity rate has been declining over the last decade, just under a third of working age women (30.7%) were economically inactive in 2021, compared to just under a quarter of men (23.6%). Inactivity rates for females have been consistently higher than males.
The most common reason for inactivity among women (29%) and men (36%) in 2021 was long term sickness. For women the proportion looking after family and home was similar at 28%, which was the least common reason (6%) amongst men.
Commentary
Historically, the Northern Ireland labour market has seen higher rates of employment and unemployment for males and higher rates of economic inactivity for females.
The female inactivity rate has been consistently higher than males over the past decade, where the difference in inactivity rates between males and females can be entirely attributed to the difference in the number looking after the family and home. Excluding these numbers from the inactivity totals in 2021 would bring the female inactivity rate slightly below that of males (22.1% for women and 22.3% for men).
Women who are working are less likely to be self-employed and are more likely to be working part-time than men. Those females with dependent children were more likely to work full-time where the youngest dependent child is primary or secondary school age, compared to those with pre-school aged children. Overall, females with dependent children of any age were more likely to work part-time than those without, while the opposite was true for males.
The higher incidence of part-time working is reflected in work quality indicators with a higher proportion of women working flexible working patterns than men. Work quality data also show lower proportions of women than men earning above the Real Living Wage and agreeing that their job offers opportunities for career progression. Lower earnings by females is also reflected in the gender pay gap. Although the gap in average pay has decreased over the past 20 years, it remains at 5.7% in favour of men, with the largest pay gap shown for the 50-59 age group at 16.0%.
Source: Written from press release.
