Niamh Cahill looks at whether pharmacy truly has become a ‘female-friendly’ profession
Women were first granted entry to study at Trinity College Dublin in 1904. This was at a time when the university landscape in Ireland was undergoing significant change as more and more women entered higher education.
The development would prove to be transformative for Irish society. But it is worth remembering that women were still not allowed to vote. That liberty was granted in 1918 and only to women over the age of 30.
It is against this backdrop that Dubliner Christina Jessop Wilson became Ireland’s first fully-qualified female pharmacist in 1900.
It was an immense achievement and enabled many more women to become pharmacists in Ireland.
Born in 1879, Jessop trained in Furlong’s Chemist before moving to work at a site where St James’s Hospital now stands. There she met Cork pharmacist John Wilson. They married and settled in Cobh, where they ran a pharmacy together.
In a fitting testament to her remarkable legacy, the pharmacy still exists. It is open to anyone who wishes to marvel in its long history after its beautifully crafted 19th Century interiors underwent careful restoration last year.
Notwithstanding her accomplishment, however, Jessop Wilson is no doubt far from the minds of female students as they settle into their chosen third-level courses in pharmacy at this time of year.
Nonetheless, her feat remains worthy of our attention. Not least because the pharmacy workforce is now nothing like what it was in 1900.
In 1947, around 10 per cent of pharmacists were female, and over a third of pharmacists were women in the 1980s.
According to 2024 data from the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI), almost 64 per cent of pharmacists here are women.
Between 2007 and 2024, the numbers of male and female pharmacists in Ireland grew by 68 per cent. By 2030, it is estimated that almost 75 per cent of the worldwide pharmacy workforce will be female.
The scales have now tipped so far in the opposite direction that the profession has even been dubbed ‘female-friendly’. So why is the role attractive to women? Studies have provided many answers to this question.
The fact that it allows women to have a career and a family is the main reason provided in survey responses.
One study from Canada suggested that women working in hospital pharmacy were in a position to provide patient care and make use of their “feminine” skills, such as communication and empathy. Yet it is important to note these are hardly skills confined to women.
The same study outlined how staff pharmacist positions outside hospitals were flexible and enabled women to move to part-time work arrangements if required.
A keen interest in science and pharmaceuticals is another reason cited by female pharmacists as to why they pursued the role. Others have noted shorter education periods in pharmacy compared to medicine.
But is there another question we should be asking? That is, why are fewer men are becoming pharmacists?
Unfortunately, research on this particular question appears to be sorely lacking. Insights into why this is the case would prove very useful. Is pharmacy no longer viewed as a long-term career by men?
Studies have shown that despite the number of women in pharmacy increasing, however, a disparity in gender representation in senior roles remains a challenge in the workplace.
The UK-based General Pharmaceutical Council in a 2019 survey found that just 2 per cent of female pharmacists were pharmacy owners compared to 13 per cent of men.
A separate UK study in 2018 undertaken at the University of Birmingham found more males occupied senior pharmacy roles, despite there being more female pharmacists than male pharmacists.
The University College Cork (UCC) Head of Pharmacy a few years ago highlighted the need to support the career progression of female staff and to address gender imbalances in senior management within the pharmacy school.
At the time, it was noted that the chairs of the School of Pharmacy committees comprised 62 per cent men, despite the majority of staff (59 per cent) being female.
What is holding women back from attaining more senior roles in the profession? Is it a lack of confidence, self-doubt or support structures?
Awareness of the imbalance is thankfully increasing, which one hopes will lead, along with other efforts, to a reduction in these incongruities in the future.
It is perfectly reasonable to believe this will take place, when one reflects upon how much change has occurred since trailblazer Jessop Wilson embarked on her career in pharmacy all those years ago.
Could she ever have imagined that women would become such an intrinsic part of the pharmacy workforce, not just in Ireland, but internationally?
Was this the future she wanted for women in pharmacy?
Niamh Cahill has a Masters in Journalism and a BSc in Communications: Film and Broadcasting from the Technological University Dublin (formerly Dublin Institute of Technology). She has been a journalist for more than 17 years and has spent much of this time writing about health. She is currently a freelance healthcare journalist.
