Comparing Counties and Regions of Ireland: Men vs Women who have a Degree or Professional Qualification #Analytics #HDSDA #96

Following yesterday's post about the number of degrees per region in Ireland, more interesting comparisons can be made when you compare the numbers of men and women with honours degrees (or a professional qualification). The Small Area Population Statistics (SAPS)) divides the Republic of Ireland into 34 areas and also provides the numbers of people in each area who have a degree as their highest qualification. The data are broken down for men and women and I have used Tableau Software below to plot a clustered bar chart of the percentage of both for each area (the figures are for all adults only aged 18 and over):

Click image to enlarge.

Some interesting facts emerge. In every area except Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (DLR), there are more women than men with a degree or professional qualification. A whopping 15.8% of men have this level of education in DLR - the highest in the country, compared to 13.4% of women (the second highest in the country). The lowest figure for men is 4.3% in Offaly, and for women it is 5.7% in Limerick City. In the major urban areas (eg DLR, Fingal, Dublin City, Galway City, and Cork) the difference between men and women is not nearly as marked as it is in rural areas. The biggest gap is 3.3% in Monaghan, where the figure for women is 7.6% and the figure for men is 4.4% (figures rounded). 

These data contrast sharply with the percentage of the population in each county for the number of men and women with a PhD. In almost every county, the number of men with a PhD exceeded the number of women, while the reverse is the case above for honours degrees. The obvious conclusion here is that far more men than women go on to postgraduate study. Note that there is no age breakdown provided in SAPS for qualifications - I suspect that the number of degrees is much higher for people under 50 than over this age. 

Similar statistics for the 2016 Census are due to be published in March 2017, and it will be interesting to make comparisons with above data. We should see a slight increase in numbers, but by how much and will it be across all counties and areas?