Squandered skills? Bridging the digital gender skills gap for inclusive growth in Ireland – A comparative European perspective

Rapid digital transformation, reflected in the growing use of digital technologies across jobs, is reshaping work in Ireland and Europe. This makes it essential to understand digital skill use in order to ensure inclusive economic growth, where the benefits of technological change are widely shared. Persistent gender gaps in access to advanced digital tasks matter because exposure to these tasks is often a stepping stone to higher-quality jobs, leadership pathways, and more productivity-enhancing work, so such disparities can reinforce wider labour market inequalities. 

This report examines the gender gaps in workplace digital task use, with a specific focus on Ireland, using the European Skills and Jobs Survey (ESJS) (Cedefop, 2021). We distinguish between basic digital tasks such as routine use of internet, word processing and spreadsheets, and advanced digital tasks including programming, AI/machine learning, and IT system management. We also construct a Job Digital Intensity Index (JDII) , which captures how digitally intensive jobs are overall, based on the range of digital tasks performed. 

Our analysis combines regression-based estimates, decomposition techniques, and distributional analysis to examine gender differences in digital task use and digital job intensity. Across Europe, women are around 15 percentage points less likely than men to perform advanced digital tasks in their jobs. Differences in observable worker and job characteristics, such as education, field of study, occupation and sector, explain only a minority of this gap, accounting for around 30 per cent on average. The remaining difference is not explained by the factors observed in the data, indicating that additional influences (not captured in the survey) may also play an important role.

We find that gender disparities widen significantly at the very upper end of the distribution. While the lower and middle levels of digital intensity show more modest differences, the gap becomes most pronounced for jobs requiring the most digitally intensive range of tasks, pointing to a ‘digital glass ceiling’ within workplaces. Across Europe, the analysis also shows that gender gaps are larger and less well explained by observable characteristics among younger cohorts  (aged under 35). This suggests that the under-representation of women in advanced digital roles is not a legacy issue confined to older cohorts, but one that continues to emerge early in careers.

Ireland stands out in the European context. It exhibits the largest gender gap in advanced digital task use, with approximately 44 per cent of men versus 18 per cent of women performing advanced digital tasks, a difference of 26 percentage points, close to double the European average. Importantly, women in Ireland use advanced digital skills at rates broadly comparable to women elsewhere in Europe. Ireland’s large gap instead reflects particularly high rates of advanced digital  task use among men. While differences in the types of jobs men and women do (often referred to as occupational sorting) explains a somewhat larger share of  the gap in Ireland than in other European countries, a substantial portion remains unexplained, highlighting the potential influence of unobserved structural, cultural or other organisational factors specific to the Irish labour market.

Overall, the evidence shows that closing the gender gap in digital skill use at work will require more than increasing women’s participation in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education or occupations. While education and access to digital jobs are important, the results highlight the need for further research into other factors that may shape opportunities to develop and apply advanced digital skills, including workplace organisation, task allocation, progression pathways, and broader organisational practices. Addressing these issues will be important not only for gender equality, but also for productivity, innovation and inclusive economic growth in Ireland.