A useful way to put the debate about inequality into perspective is to compare two major trends in modern Ireland: the steady decline of the gender pay gap and the equally steady collapse in birth rates.
One is treated as a central political priority and evidence of ongoing injustice. The other, despite its far-reaching consequences, receives comparatively limited attention.
The gender pay gap in Ireland has been narrowing for decades. In 2007, the gender pay gap in Ireland was 17.3%. By 2022, it stood at 9.6%, with average hourly earnings of €27.73 for men and €25.06 for women. When broken down further, the differences become smaller: among full-time workers, the gap is closer to 7%, and in part-time work it reverses, with women earning slightly more than men.
In many organisations today, reported gaps fall between 3% and 5%, especially in the education sector. In other words, Ireland has moved steadily toward income parity between men and women over the past twenty years. The Gender Pay Gap Information Act was passed in 2021, and mandatory reporting began in 2022, requiring larger companies to publish their gender pay gap data.
At the same time, however, another trend has moved sharply in the opposite direction.
Ireland’s fertility rate has fallen to around 1.5 births per woman in 2023–2024, well below the replacement level of 2.1 required for a stable population. The decline has been both recent and rapid. As recently as 2014, fertility was close to 2.0. Since then, it has dropped significantly, while the total number of births has fallen from approximately 67,000 in 2014 to just over 54,000 in 2024.
This contrast is striking. One widely discussed “gap” is narrowing year after year; another—arguably far more consequential for society—is widening. The implications of a declining birth rate are not abstract. A fertility rate of 1.5 means that, without immigration, each generation will be substantially smaller than the last. Over time, this leads to an ageing population, increasing pressure on pension systems, and a shrinking workforce supporting a growing number of dependents. It is not simply a social trend but a structural challenge that affects economic growth, public finances, and long-term stability.
And yet, the level of public attention devoted to these two issues is not proportional to their impact. The gender pay gap, now reduced to a difference of a few percentage points and influenced by working hours, career choices, and sectoral differences, is often treated as a primary indicator of injustice. Meanwhile, the decline in birth rates—a development with profound consequences for the future of society—rarely occupies the same central place in public debate.
This imbalance raises a broader question: what exactly are we trying to achieve? If the goal is to create a fair and sustainable society, then it is not immediately clear why closing a modest difference in average earnings should take precedence over addressing a demographic trend that will shape the country for generations.
None of this is to dismiss the importance of fairness in the labour market. But the gender pay gap itself is often misunderstood. As defined, it measures the difference in average earnings across all jobs and workers—not unequal pay for equal work, which is already illegal. It reflects differences in working hours, occupational choices, and life patterns, including the impact of childcare. Treating it as direct evidence of discrimination risks oversimplifying a much more complex reality.
By contrast, the decline in birth rates is not a statistical artefact. It is a direct measure of whether a society is reproducing itself. It speaks not only to economic conditions, but also to housing affordability, family policy, work-life balance, and broader cultural priorities. Unlike the gender pay gap, it cannot be explained away by differences in job type or hours worked.
Seen together, these two trends highlight a mismatch between what is measured and what matters. One is a narrow economic indicator that captures differences in averages. The other is a fundamental signal about the long-term viability of society itself.
The comparison does not mean that the gender gap is not relevant. It does, however, suggest that the current focus is unbalanced. A debate that treats a shrinking pay gap as a defining problem, while largely overlooking a falling birth rate, risks prioritising the visible over the important.
If the objective is long-term wellbeing, the emphasis should be broader. Reducing social exclusion, improving access to housing, and enabling people to form families if they choose to do so are all central to a functioning society. Equality, properly understood, cannot be reduced to a single figure—particularly one that says less than it appears.
In this context, the gender pay gap begins to look less like the central economic challenge of our time and more like a narrow metric that has come to dominate the conversation at the expense of deeper and more consequential issues.
References:
FRED (World Bank data series) – Ireland fertility rate historical dataset
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINIRL [fred.stlouisfed.org]
Séamus Clarke is an Irish academic working in a third-level institution. He writes here under a pen name.