Recession sees one in 10 women become main breadwinner

One in 10 women is now the main breadwinner because of the impact of the recession on male employment.

And the rates of men and women who are now reliant on part-time jobs for their incomes because they cannot find full-time work has almost tripled during the economic decline.

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has co-authored two reports with the Equality Authority on the recession’s impact on gender employment and equality issues.

The first report Gender and the quality of work: from boom to recession examined the evolution of female and male employment conditions over the course of the recession.

It found that, thanks to the numbers of men employed in construction at the height of the boom combined with the number of women in more “sheltered” sectors, meant that when the recession took hold a far greater percentage of men lost their jobs. It said the gender employment gap has now fallen from 16% in 2007 to 8% in 2012.

In 2007, it found, fewer than 3% of employed men and women worked part-time because they could not find a full-time job. Fast-forward to 2012 and those percentages had risen to 11% for employed women and 7% for employed men.

The report also pinpoints the level of job insecurity workers were experiencing at the height of the economic decline. It found that more than a quarter of workers here feared that they would lose their jobs in the following six months — high compared to 16% across the EU.

It found households were juggling their employment to try to maintain their finances.

“This suggests one might observe a rise in female breadwinner households in situations where male unemployment is high,” the report’s authors said.

“Between 2007 and 2010 the proportion of households where the woman was employed full-time and the male was not employed or employed part-time increased from 6% to 11%. This may have implications for the gender division of household labour, sharing of resources and gender inequalities in household decision-making which merit further research.”

The other report from the ESRI and Equality Authority, Winners And Losers? The Equality Impact of the Great Recession in Ireland, looked at how age, gender and marital status had shaped people’s experiences during the recession.

It found that unemployment rates of the youngest age groups were particularly badly affected — for 20-24 year olds the unemployment rate grew from 6% to 23% between 2007 and 2012, significantly faster than for adults aged 35 to 44 years (from 4% to 14%).

Between 2007 and 2011 the rate of deprivation — the inability to afford two or more of 11 basic goods and services — more than doubled across the population, from 11.8% to 24.5%.

Lone parents and their children have suffered particularly badly. In 2012, levels of unemployment were highest among never married lone parents (25%). The report found that in both 2007 and 2011 income poverty and basic deprivation were highest for never-married lone parents, among whom 32% were income poor and 49% were materially deprived by 2011. Rates were similar for formerly-married lone parents.