Women's Occupational Trends in the Irish Economy: Moving towards High-skilled Occupations or Evidence of Deskilling?

In recent years the increased participation of women in the Irish labour market and in tertiary education would appear to have placed them in an advantageous position to make use of the expanded opportunities in knowledge-based occupations. Using occupational data from the 1996 and 2006 census this article examines the experience of women in high- and low-skilled occupations. The data indicate that women are over-represented in high-skilled occupations relative to their overall participation rate in the labour force but there is also an increase in the proportion of women in low-skilled occupations. The employment of women in high-skilled occupations is substantially weaker in the private sector than the public sector. Public sector employment, we argue, is a crucial factor in the increased participation of women in high-skilled occupations.