Women earn 17% less than men for doing the same work

IRISH women would have to work an extra 53 days to earn the same pay as their male colleagues, according to the latest statistics which show their wages, on average, are 17% less than men doing the same work.

The bias against women is repeated in the Dáil, the civil service, management and the boards of companies, where women fare much worse than most of their EU counterparts.

Apart from the moral obligation to stop discriminating against women, there is now an economic incentive, as studies show companies with more female board members are weathering the economic crisis better, while female-owned SMEs are 10% more efficient.

But despite 30 years of equal pay legislation pushed through by the EU, at least half the pay gap represents pure discrimination against women, Vladimir Spidla, the EU’s Equal Opportunities commissioner said.

The rest is down to a lack of opportunity for women forced to leave the workplace to look after families or working in sectors dominated by women where the pay is automatically less.

Dublin MEP Proinsias De Rossa said that while the cases of direct discrimination have fallen, the gender pay gap remains.

“This means that in order to earn what men earn in a year, women have to work for a year and 53 days the following year,” he said.

Working a five-day week makes this 10 weeks and three days.

The pay gap has serious consequences for women later in life as it means they have smaller pensions. The figures show that 21% of women over 65 are at risk of poverty compared with 16% of men.

Italy has the lowest pay gap at 4.4% followed by Malta and Poland, while the gap is widest in Estonia.

The Dáil has just over 13% women — third-lowest in the EU and among the lowest in the world — while only 17% of candidates in the last general election were female.

Ireland is one of only eight countries with no female-led political party while in the civil service only 16% of top jobs are held by women — the fourth worst in the EU.

In Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Hungary, women head up less than 5% of companies.

The best-balanced EU institution is the Parliament, with 41% of senior posts filled by women, followed by the EU Commission at 20%, while the number employed by the council that represents the member state governments has dropped to 15% and there are no women in any of its 11 top jobs.