Closing the gap: the state of gender pay equality in Northern Ireland

This blog article is part of a series from the Assembly Research and Information Service to mark International Women’s Day 2025.

On average, men earn 7.3% more than women in Northern Ireland. That equates to an extra £1.14 per hour, based on the latest data from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) for 2024.

Despite the gap narrowing over the last decade, the Gender Pay Gap remains a systemic issue impacting women across Northern Ireland.

As part of our series to highlight International Women’s Day, this blog will present some of the latest data and available research on the Gender Pay Gap in Northern Ireland. It will highlight the Gender Pay Gap’s significant impact on women, as well as showcasing some of the recent policy initiatives being developed in Northern Ireland to eliminate the Gender Pay Gap.

The Gender Pay Gap in Northern Ireland

The UK Government defines the Gender Pay Gap as:

. . . the difference between the average pay of men and women in an organisation.

The Gender Pay Gap should not be confused with equal pay. Men and women being paid differently for the same work was made unlawful in the UK by the Equal Pay Act 1970. There are several causes that contribute to the Gender Pay Gap. These causes are varied, often overlapping, and can originate from within and outside of the workplace, including:

• A higher proportion of women work in occupations with lower financial reward (e.g. Childcare). In contrast, men are disproportionately represented in higher paid sectors (e.g. Information and Communications Technology). This is despite girls and women typically performing better in school and achieving higher levels of qualifications.
• Women are more likely to work part-time than men. The 2023 NISRA report into the Northern Ireland Labour market found that women account for 69.7% (183,101) of part-time workers, while men accounted for 61.8% (362,395) of those in full-time employment.
• On average, women work fewer hours than male colleagues. Among full time workers, men worked an average of 38.9 hours, compared to 34.1 hours for women. In part-time employment, women worked 17.5 hours, compared to men’s 17.9 hours.

The Department for Communities has identified that the higher proportion of women in part-time employment is often due to caregiving responsibilities. Between October and December 2024, 45,000 women were recorded as being economically inactive due to family and home care in Northern Ireland, compared to 5,000 men.[1] Women are more likely to experience disruptions to their careers than men, taking time out to have and raise children. This is sometimes coined the ‘motherhood penalty’ and covers various challenges including reduced earning and slower career progression.

Impacting women’s financial independence

Income, career advancement, savings for retirement and financial independence are all affected by the Gender Pay Gap. Research conducted by the Pensions Policy Institute in 2019 estimated that to draw the same pension as men, women need to have save 5 – 7% more of their income by retirement age. Additionally, over the course of a working life, the Gender Pay Gap will cut a woman’s pension wealth by approximately 28%.

Recent progress has been made in closing the Gender Pay Gap. The gap in Northern Ireland has narrowed over time, falling from 18.4% in 2001, to 7.3% in 2024. Lower gaps of 5.9% and 4.7% were recorded in 2020 and 2021 respectively. This was likely because of furlough during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Gender Pay Gap is also smaller in Northern Ireland compared to the wider UK (see Figure 1 below). This is attributed to:

• Lower average pay in Northern Ireland’s private sector, which compresses pay differentials.
• A smaller Gender Pay Gap present in the public sector, where wages tend to be more equal between men and women. Public sector jobs account for 27% of roles in Northern Ireland, compared to 18% in the UK.

Despite progress, much remains to be done

At first glance, the falling gender pay gap paints a positive picture. The gap is lower in Northern Ireland when compared to the UK and continues to trend downwards. However, these headline figures should not mask the systemic income inequalities impacting women in Northern Ireland society. Recent research by the Nevin Economic Research Institute in 2023, warns that because the Gender Pay Gap is smaller in Northern Ireland compared to the rest of the UK, it may not get the attention it deserves.

The research found that women tend to have ‘better’ job-related characteristics, such as higher educational attainment and productivity related skills. However, men have a better return on those characteristics. For example, while women generally achieve better academic results, men see greater financial rewards from their qualifications.

The results show the larger and ultimately fundamental importance of higher returns to males, for the same employment characteristics, in driving the Gender Pay Gap.[2]

The research highlights two key factors influencing the gender pay gap;

• ‘Explained’ components, such as education and experience, help to reduce the gap
• ‘Unexplained’ components, which are harder to measure, contribute to the gap persisting. While discrimination plays a role, the research argues it would be a mistake to attribute all of this ‘unexplained’ gap to it alone.

To address the Gender Pay Gap, the research concludes that examining how jobs are allocated may have a positive impact. In the public sector, current job allocations for women tend to be distributed into the highest and lowest paid roles. Encouraging a more even distribution across all public sector roles could close the Gender Pay Gap even further.

Policy and legislative efforts to tackle the Gender Pay Gap in Northern Ireland

There are several ongoing strands of policy work, as well as legislation in development, intended to help reduce the Gender Pay Gap in Northern Ireland.

The Department of Education is engaged in ongoing work delivering the Executive’s Childcare Strategy. Recent developments include the work to deliver the Northern Ireland Childcare Subsidy Scheme (designed to reduce the childcare costs for eligible parents by 15% and enable workforce participation) and the standardisation of the Pre-School Education Programme (PSEP) (enabling 100 pre-school settings to deliver at least 22.5 hours of pre-school education per week).

Government departments have recently consulted on flexible working as well as gender pay reporting. The ‘Good Jobs’ Employment Rights Bill (under the Department for the Economy) and the Consultation on the Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations (Department for Communities) aimed to capture the view of stakeholders on:

• The benefits of flexible working, which the Department stated can have a beneficial impact on closing the Gender Pay Gap, by “enabling those with primary caring responsibilities, who are predominately women, to remain or return to the workforce when work and life commitments can be better balanced.” (Department for the Economy. 2024. pg. 102).
• Developing regulations that will require employers to disclose and publish, information showing whether Gender Pay Gap disparities exist between male and female employees. If a gap is identified, the employer must publish an action plan stating how they will eliminate the differences.

The case for a Pay Strategy and transparency

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) continues to call on the Northern Ireland Executive to implement a gender pay strategy. The strategy should set out the key actions to be taken across government and the public and private sectors. The Commission’s recommendations for the strategy include:

1. Greater access to affordable and appropriate childcare.
2. Address female underrepresentation in certain industries and sectors (e.g. STEM)
3. Address the stereotypes that impact on female education and career choices.
4. Support employers to implement policies that provide support and advancement for women returning to work.

Alongside the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the ECNI have called for an amendment to the law in Northern Ireland to reflect the European Union (EU) Pay Transparency Directive (PTD). The EU PTD requires employers to report mean and median gender pay gaps and remedy pay gaps of 5% or more. This follows the commitment set out in Article 2 Windsor Framework that equality and human rights in Northern Ireland keep pace with certain EU equality rights.

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[1] NISRA, Labour Market Report – February 2025. Labour Force Survey tables – February 2025, table 2.4

[2] L Wilson and C O’Gorman, ‘How are we unequal? The adjusted gender pay gap in Northern Ireland’, Nevin Economic Research Institute (2023), p52