By Sarah Donoghue
The Irish Times isn’t just a newspaper—it’s a big part of Irish culture. The Irish Times has been around since 1859. It’s like a history book in newspaper form, telling the story of Ireland through all its ups and downs. From big events like wars to cultural stuff, they’ve covered it all. But they’re not stuck in the past, they’ve kept up with the times. They’ve embraced new ways of reaching people, like the internet. Through all these changes, one thing hasn’t changed; they have been at the forefront of political and social change in Ireland. One of the many ways they’ve done this is by publishing a gender pay gap report every year.
Their report for 2023 showed they’d gone forward in leaps and bounds. Although, reports like that can be long, boring and filled with numbers – so I’m here to summarise it for you.
The Irish Times has made big strides in closing the pay gap between men and women. In 2023, the difference in pay between men and women dropped significantly compared to the year before. First, they looked at the mean or the average. Previously, men were making about 14.47% more than women, but in 2023, that went down to just 4.24%.
The report looked at the median wage too, which is the middle point of all the wages – this stops huge outliers skewing the results like they do when you’re using the mean. In 2022, women were making about 20.39% less than men, but in 2023, that gap went down to 8.15%.
They did this report based on the numbers from June 28th, and it’s the second year they’ve had to do this kind of report. But how have they been working towards closing the gap? They’ve been hiring more women for higher-up jobs, which helped shrink the pay gap, but they also noticed that while there are more women in the top-paying jobs, there are fewer in the lower-paying ones.
They are trying to hire more men in certain areas, like the print plant (the facility where newspapers, magazines, books, and other printed materials are made) which has somewhat balanced things out. Work in the print plant includes typesetting, printing, binding, and sometimes distribution of printed materials. Work in the printing plant doesn’t require as much education as journalists or editors and is usually paid less. They still want to work on closing the gap in other parts of the company, like in tech and editorial.
The Irish Times should be very happy with the progress they’ve made. They’ve said they’re aiming to get even closer to eliminating the pay gap and want to have an equal number of men and women in top positions within five years.
Sponsored by The Irish Times