Inequality among worst in EU

IRISH women are being paid almost 20% less than men despite being better educated, a major report on gender equality across Europe has found.

This is despite the fact that more than half the jobs created in Ireland in the past five years have been filled by women, who are doing more than their share to drive the Celtic Tiger.

They are also among the most disadvantaged in the EU when it comes to childcare, they do an unfair share of the housework and are most at risk of poverty.

The report paints a depressing picture right across Europe, where despite being better educated, having few children and later, women are still paid less.

The report suggests that this is pure discrimination at work, because as employers increasingly negotiate individual contracts with their workers, they offer women less money.

European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Vladimir Spidla, launching the report on the eve of International Women’s Day, said: “Women are driving job growth in Europe and are outperforming men in education, but they are still underpaid, earning on average 15% less than men for every hour worked.”

Senior UCD lecturer Ursula Barry, who was involved in the report, said that Irish government policies have ignored women and their needs, even at a time when the country could afford to treat them better.

“Ireland is at the high end when it comes to the huge increase in women in the workplace, compared to the rest of the EU, but we are at the low end when it comes to support for women, and particularly in childcare.

“We are talking about a situation where only about 3% of pre-school childcare is provided by the State, which is at the very end of the European scale,” she said.

Ireland is fourth from the bottom of the EU 27 when it comes to electing women to parliament, with just 14% of the total.

“It is incredible that the childcare system has not been addressed over the past few years, given the wealth generated by the Celtic Tiger but this must be because women are not inside the political arena,” she said.

Women have been forced to adapt to the workplace, spending far more hours looking after their family and the home when they finish work than even men who are employed only part-time.

They spend more time than men looking after children and the elderly, and have much less time off when they have a child than in most other countries.

On average, women are paid 11% less than men although the gap is wider when just jobs in the private sector are considered. Then it comes closer to 20%.

This is despite more women being better educated than men. But they still tend to be concentrated in the caring professions, where they are paid less and are less trained for the better-paid hi-tech jobs.

“The glass ceiling remains and the workplace and our system remain extremely rigid,” said Ms Barry, who is a member of the EU’s Gender, Employment and Social Network.

Irish women over 65 years are the second most at risk of poverty in the EU, even after their social entitlements have been taken into account, according to the report.

Ms Barry said part of the problem is that married women are not entitled in their own right to a pension at 65, but are seen as a dependent of their husbands.

The other major area of female poverty is lone parents. They qualify for a special allowance, while in other countries they are either employed or unemployed with allowances for their children and incentives to return to work.