Women to overtake men by 2012
Better exam results will catapult them to top at work
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The projections are made in a joint report from FÁS and the Economic and Social Research Institute which looks at the likely share-out of jobs by 2012.
Just over a quarter of females will have degrees by then compared with only a fifth of men. A further 15.4pc of females are expected to have attained diploma/certificate level compared with only 9.5pc of men.
By contrast, nearly a fifth of men (18.9pc) will drop out of school with only a Junior Certificate. Just 11.4pc of women, however, will drop out at Junior Certificate level.
Women tend to concentrate in clusters of occupations while men are in a greater range of jobs, some of which face uncertainty.
The most obvious is construction where most workers are male.
And the report, written by Dr Pete Lunn, Prof Gerry Hughes and Ms Nicola Doyle, suggests males workers would be more exposed if there were negative shocks to the housing market and the construction sector in general.
It predicts that, in the medium-term, overall jobs growth will be greatest in occupations that require third-level qualifications and high skill levels.
Professional, associate professional and managerial occupations are expected to grow by more than 20pc relative to 2005 figures.
Outside of these high-skill occupations, some personal services occupations, including caring occupations such as childcare, are likely to experience similar expansion.
Highest growth is expected in business, financial and the legal professions, where numbers are predicted to rise by nearly 50pc. Other occupations forecast to expand are managers and highly qualified workers in health, education and science.
The report expects that two thirds of the health and education professions will be populated by female workers in 2012 - in fact 8.5pc of all female workers will be in one or other of these areas.
At present, around half of business, legal and other professionals such as psychologists, actors and information officers are women but the report predicts that their share will increase to 55pc in the next five years.
In the case of science professionals, the report expects that women will account for 58.5pc by 2012 compared with 41.5pc in 1998. The category includes chemists, physicists and pharmacists.
However, the proportion of women engineers, including software engineers, is expected to drop. This reflects the recent decline in numbers of females entering related courses.
An area where women seem to be heading towards equality with men is management.
In 1998, a third of managers were women but this is expected to reach 46.9pc in five years.
However, Dr Lunn stressed this did not necessarily mean women were breaking through the 'glass ceiling' to the board room - it could simply be that more were being appointed to middle management and supervisory levels.
- John Walshe
