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Mind the gender gap - it's still here

Thursday, March 07 14:14:59

Ahead of International Women's Day, new figures released today by Eurostat - the EU's statistical office - on women in employment reveal that there is still some way to go to achieve real equality in the workplace.

Part-time working remains much more common for females with more than one in four (26pc) employed Irish women with one child working part-time compared to just below eightpc of their male counterparts.

In line with the EU average, only one third of managers in Ireland are female. While there were fewer female than male managers in all member states, some countries are doing better with the highest proportions of female managers recorded in 2011 in Latvia (45pc), Hungary (41pc) and France (40pc ). Cyprus is the lowest with only 15pc.

Women dominate the teaching profession in Ireland, particularly in primary education, as in all EU countries. In 2011, 85pc of primary school teachers in Ireland were women. While there are also more female than male teachers at upper secondary level, the pattern across the EU is less pronounced. Sixty fivepc of secondary teachers in Ireland were female, slightly above the EU average of 59pc.

The figures also include data on reconciling work and family life. In 2011, almost one third of employed women with one child under six in the EU worked part-time, rising to half of employed women with three children or more. For employed men, the rates were significantly lower (5pc and 7pc respectively).

The data on flexible working hours appears more progressive with around one third of both Irish men and women using flexitime (35pc and 32.5pc respectively). This is above the European average of 28.7pc for men and 25.9pc for women. The largest share for both women and men was registered in the Nordic countries with 53pc of Finnish women and 59pc of men having some form of flexible working, just above next in line Sweden (49pc and 47pc) and Denmark (both 44pc).