Action needed to bring about a change in pay gap culture
Today marks European Equal Pay Day. Over the past 40 years, almost every advanced country has introduced laws outlawing gender discrimination in terms of pay, eligibility for job interview, and promotion. All OECD countries provide for maternity leave and with the exception of the US, each country offers income support during this time. Yet every single country across the OECD and EI has a gap in the average wages earned by males and females. Ireland is not the worst in the class — we are ranked 9th in terms of an hourly pay gap of 13.9% across the EU’s 28 member states.
Women in Ireland have made significant strides in education and in the workplace over the past two decades. Females outperform males in education and have taken up three out of every five jobs created in the Irish economy since 1998. Yet, there remains a large gap both in terms of pay and employment as women enter the labour market and progress through the world of work. In the first half of 2017, the female employment rate was just over 60%, some 10.75% behind that of males.
