The Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform is to investigate the gap in earnings between male and female graduates.
The Minister of State Mr Willie O'Dea will this week seek tenders for research into why new women graduates earn up to 18 per cent less than their male counterparts. He said he wanted this research to come up with recommendations for measures to bridge the earnings divide, which he said was due to unconscious discrimination.
"There is anecdotal evidence that female graduates tend, after a couple of years or immediately after graduation, to be lower paid than their male counterparts There's unconscious discrimination - a tendency for men in banks to be moved up to the dealing room whereas women go to soft areas like human resources."
Mr O'Dea said he wanted the new research to "establish the extent of the problem and what can be done about it".
A recent study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ERSI) showed that women who graduated in 1992 were, within six years, earning 18 per cent less than their male counterparts. The economy-wide gender pay gap stood at about 15 per cent in 2000, according to ERSI data.
This earnings gap is usually attributed to the fact that women may be absent from work when they have children. However, this would not explain why new female graduates also tend to earn less than men.
Career choice, employers' recruitment practices and gender stereotyping within the workplace are seen as likely causes.