Gender Gaps in Employment and Participation Rates

Gender Gaps in Participation and Employment Rates The EU employment guidelines and Irish employment action plans have consistently maintained the twin objectives of increasing employment rates for women (and reducing gender gaps in employment) and reconciling work and family life, under the pillar of equal opportunities. There have been very dramatic increases in women's participation and employment rates in Ireland and consequently significant reductions in the very wide gender gaps in these rates. Comparison of Irish and EU female activity rates shows that Ireland has been converging gradually with the EU average since the early 1990s. In 1990, the female participation rate in Ireland was 13 percentage points lower than the EU15 average. By 200, the Irish female participation rate stood at 55.7%, while the EU15 average was 59.8%, a gap of only 4.1 percentage points. Changes in female employment rates in Ireland have been even more dramatic. In 1983, only one-third of Irish women were in employment, in 2001, 54% were employed Ireland is close to achieving the target female employment rate of 57% by 2005, but only if the slowdown in employment growth in 2001 is reversed. These changes in female labour force participation and employment rates have been driven by rapid increases in the employment of married women. Nevertheless, while Irish women without children have activity rates very close to the EU average, the activity rates for women with young children remain very low compared with the EU average. Comparison of participation rates of mothers highlights the importance of childcare and other supports for working mothers. Since the introduction of the Employment Strategy there has been increased investment in childcare provision, although in Ireland, such developments start from an extremely low base. In the first two years of the EAP investments in childcare were very modest (14 million over two years, 1998/9). However, the National Development Plan (1999) allocated 317 million for expenditure on childcare for the period 2000 to 2006, and an additional 33.7 million was allocated in 2000. The target for the programme is to create 28,208 new places by 2006. It is estimated that if the NDP targets are reached, the number of new places should just keep pace with new demand to 2006, however further significant funding post 2006 will be needed to meet continuing increases in demand. Given that a considerable proportion of the new provision is expected to be in the private sector, affordability is likely to continue to a problem in the future.