Chapter 1
CHANGING ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL WORLDS OF IRISH WOMEN
Ursula Barry
We have just lived through a decade of enormous change in the economic and social
position of Irish women. From a traditional position in which the majority of women
were carers - unpaid carers - women now occupy the dual role of carer-earner. The
majority of women are now in paid employment, including women with children,
married women and a significant proportion of women lone parents. This has meant
huge changes in women's lives, changes which have been brought about by the
decisions and choices of thousands of individual women, despite the lack of policies
or support systems to facilitate such change. This chapter explores some of the key
aspects of the economic and social policy frameworks that shape, and sometimes
determine, the changing patterns of Irish women's lives.
WOMEN'S ECONOMIC WORLDS
There has been little response in the world of paid work to the dual roles that most
women now occupy of carer-earner. Irish women have had to adapt to the world of
paid work, a world which developed based on patriarchal assumptions that care
needs were taken place elsewhere, by women, in the unpaid private world of
families, households and communities. Although the world of paid employment in
Ireland has taken on women workers in huge numbers, it has hardly changed its
shape or organisation. It continues to make little to no allowance for care needs and
care provision - Ireland, almost alone in the EU, still has no provision for paid
parental leave.
Women themselves, and households, have been forced to rely on extended family
and community supports, or increasingly costly and inadequate private market care
services, to meet the care needs of children and elderly persons. Despite extensive
debate and an array of promises from within the political system public provision
and support for childcare services is abysmal. We have the lowest level of public
provision across the EU, private services are the most expensive and research shows
that these costs eat away at large portions of the weekly income of low and middle
income households. One result of this is that women are deferring childbirth to a
later age, are having fewer children and frequently turning to low paid immigrant
women workers to provide care services as a way to bypass the prohibitive cost of
mainstream market services.
So where are women located across the Irish economy, what are the economic
situations of Irish women and what kind of economic worlds do Irish women
inhabit?
It is possible to define or characterise four economic worlds which women inhabit
globally each of which is reflected in aspects of women's economic situation in
Ireland.
The first economic world is one which forms a part of the official economy - an economy
that is characterised by gendered patterns, inequalities and divisions. It is that
specific, segregated part of the labour market into which women workers are
concentrated : the vast majority of service workers, most of the low-paid, the major
portion of homeworkers & family workers, and most of the temporary, part-time,
casualised and precarious workers are women. Given this picture, what is
particularly interesting at the present time, is that employment growth in Ireland (as
well as across the EU), is predominantly female. It is the growth in women's
employment (as well as in the number of migrant workers) which has fueled the job
growth of the Celtic Tiger. While low interest rates and capital taxes have played a
role, without this huge source of additional labour the high economic growth rates
of the past decade simply would not have happened.
But not all the employment growth has been in low paid services. Of crucial
importance to a significant sector of women is the growth of professional
employment, much of it in the public sector. Public sector and certain private
services have been one of the very few areas of employment where, as well as low
paid clerical jobs, women have also managed to access more skilled and better paid
jobs. A close analysis of the jobs market however shows that while some women are
reaching the middle level of the jobs hierarchy (for example in business, financial,
professional and public services) very few women reach the upper layers of that
hierarchy. Within the pay system women continue to experience clear discrimination
across the economy, even among recent graduates from the third level system
women's pay is on average 11% below that of male graduates. The average
measured gender pay gap recorded in paid employment is currently running at 16%.
The second economic world which women inhabit is one of unpaid, unrecognised
family and community labour : the hidden world of non-market and non-measured
economic activity which hardly merits official recognition. One of the key
characteristics of much of women's labour globally is its invisibility. Unpaid labour
in households and communities, and in the informal and agricultural sectors, most
of which, in all countries, is performed by women. Domestic and community labour
is a powerful factor in the accumulation of wealth - it supports families and
communities, subsidises male paid labour and lowers the cost of social reproduction.
In all countries, the overwhelming majority of unpaid work is carried out by women,
who work on average over twice as many hours a day as men. Its exclusion from all
economic statistics distorts the contribution of women to economic development and
the well-being of their countries and, as a consequence, establishes a false basis to
economic policy and planning.
Unpaid work is a fundamental issue for women. Economic policies driven by rigid
definitions of employment and unemployment bypass huge numbers of women and
key aspects of women's lives. And they can also result in overt and unacceptable
discrimination. For example, in this country, being defined as unemployed or more
particularly long-term unemployed still determines many benefits levels, entitlements
and eligibility for training and employment schemes.
As long back as 1985, at the final World Conference of the UN Decade for Women
held in Nairobi, governments agreed that :
The remunerated and, in particular, the unremunerated contributions of
women to all aspects and sectors of development should be recognised and
appropriate efforts should be made to measure and reflect these contributions
in national accounts and economic statistics and in the gross national product.
At the UN Beijing Conference in 1995 this commitment had to essentially be remade,
but no time frame or plan of action has yet been agreed or adopted at an Irish, EU or
global level for the implementation of this commitment. Under Partnership 2000, the
Irish Government agreed to set up an inter-departmental working committee on
measuring unpaid work. This committee recommended the collection of data on
unpaid work and led to the carrying out of a pilot survey on time-use by the Central
Statistics Office in 2003. No further progress or recommendations have been made.
Time-use/time-budget analysis has not been taken further nor has it been integrated
into the Census of Population as is the case in many other countries.
There is also a third economic world which women inhabit and which has grown and
spread at a rapid rate over recent years: sex trade, sexual exploitation and slavery,
trafficking in women and children. It is now estimated that the third largest trade in
illegal commodities (after drugs and weapons) is the trade in women and children an enormous and growing international industry. Ruhama, a small organisation
engaged in crucial work with women prostitutes in Dublin has worked with over 150
women who have been trafficked into Ireland over the last ten years. The actual
numbers of women and children trafficked in this country are likely to be multiples
of that figure.
But while resources and legal instruments have been mobilised on an international
scale against the drug trade, efforts are only beginning to be put into protecting
women and children whose lives are destroyed by the sex trade. In our complacency,
these issues have tended to be viewed as mainly affecting the economies of Asia,
Africa and Latin America and that enacting legislative changes allowing sex tourists
to be prosecuted in their countries of origin would be sufficient by way of response.
Mounting evidence now shows us that this is not the case. The frightening growth in
the scale of street based child prostitution in the cities of EU (estimates put the
number of child prostitutes in UK alone at 5,000) demonstrate that we are confronted
with both specialised paedophile networks as well as the transformation of the
general prostitution market to generate a widespread trade in children. And evidence
shows that Ireland is part of these trends.
Trafficking in women includes not only forced prostitution, but also for example,
forced domestic labour and clandestine employment. Those who have researched
and analysed the economics of the sex trade argue that the operation of laws and
institutions with respect to migrant workers contribute directly to the vulnerability
of women and children to sexual exploitation and abuse. In this context, it is
particularly crucial that our legislation and policy towards immigration, including
the definitions of Irish and EU citizenship, do not result in further marginalisation
and exclusion of migrants.
Finally, the fourth economic world that women inhabit is that of domestic service –
nannies, maids, cleaners and others. This is a world which has grown enormously in
western economies over the past fifteen to twenty years. It is largely structured
around the labour of third or majority world women within middle and higher income
western households. It is an economy which is linked to the third economic world
above – frequently overlapping with conditions of vulnerablility, illegal working,
migration, racism, war, conflict and domestic slavery.
It is an economy which highlights the growing two-tiered nature of women’s
economic existences :
On the one side : well-paid professional women.
On the other side : low paid, casual & vulnerable women
A growing feature of Irish, and contemporary western society generally, is the
increase in the proportion of women in paid employment, as well as an increase in
the proportions of both double earning and single parent households. A
consequence of these trends is that women are employing women across the two sides
of women’s labour force – across the tiers of unequal labour force participation.
Without any significant change in the sharing of caring and domestic responsibilities
between women and men these trends are likely to continue and become reinforced
in the future.
Thanks to the process we loosely call ‘globalisation’ women are on the move
as never before in history. In images familiar to the West from television
commercials for credit cards, cell phones, and airlines, female executives jet
around the world, phoning home from luxury hotels and reuniting with eager
children at airports. But we hear much less about a far more prodigious flow
of female labour and energy : the increasing migration of millions of women
from poor countries to rich ones, where they serve as nannies, maids, and
sometimes sex workers….This is the female underside of globalisation,
whereby millions of Josephines from poor countries in the south migrate to
do ‘women’s work’ of the north – work the affluent women are no longer able
or willing to do. These migrant women often leave their own children in the
care of grandmothers, sisters, and sisters-in-law. Sometimes a young daughter
drawn out of school to care for her younger siblings.
This pattern of female migration reflects what could be called a worldwide
gender revolution……
While the European or American woman commutes to work on average
twenty-eight minutes a day, many nannies from the Philippines, Sri Lanka,
and India cross the globe to get to their jobs. Some female migrants from the
Third World do find something like ‘liberation’ or at least the chance to
become independent breadwinners and to improve their children’s material
lives. Others, less fortunate migrant women end up in the control of criminal
employers – their passports stolen, their mobility blocked, forced to work
without pay in brothels or to provide sex along with cleaning and child-care
services in affluent homes. But even in more typical cases, where benign
employers pay wages on time, Third World migrant women achieve success
only by assuming the cast-off domestic roles of middle- and high- income
women in the First World – roles that have previously been rejected, of
course, by men. And their ‘commute’ entails a cost we have yet to fully
comprehend (Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2005).
Most receiving countries have yet to recognise the contributions of their migrant care
workers. In fact, there is a strong tendency at individual, family and societal level to
keep migrant care invisible and hidden. Immigration policies are specifically
designed to limit the possibilities for reuniting families. Migrant workers provide the
best possible care service to their employers when they are free from care
responsibilities themselves. These are new gendered inequalities - between women
and men, but also among and between women themselves.
Looking across areas of women's paid employment feminist economists and
women’s organisations have highlighted specific policies necessary to protect
women’s employment, particularly those so-called flexible areas of employment, and
policies to establish improved rates of pay among the low paid.
- revaluing of lower status job areas
- indexation of a reasonable minimum wage
- higher participation in education/training to further upgrade skills and
employment prospects
- desegregation of higher status job areas
- minimum guaranteed standards of public service provision
- full protection for ‘flexible’ workers e.g. part-time and temporary contract workers
-fair trade and minimum labour standards globally
- rights based immigration legislation and policies
Without such a shift in policy emphasis, core economic policies may result in a
deterioration of women’s position on the labour market, despite commitments to
equality and the elimination of discrimination. Underlying the limitations and
contradictions of current economic policy is the fact that the subject matter of
economic debate within our society is contrived. By focusing almost wholly on the
official economy, it is based on a constructed image of economic activity. This means
that there is a dislocation between the world of economic policy making and the
economic worlds of women. Policy-making and implementation derive from their
points of origin and so long as economic policies deny the existence of the full range
of human economic activity they will be gender skewed. For economic policies to
recognise and reflect the position of women they must first identify the gender
divisions and differences in that system. Such policies then need to address the
actual economic situations of women - not just the narrow arena of the formal
economy. Unless this happens, then the priorities of mainstream economic policy
can never be the priorities of women. The lack of prioritising of care is one outcome
of this (see Chapter 7 by Kathleen Lynch) but it is also evident in the lack of a gender
informed analysis of poverty and inequality despite the concentration of women
among those at the margins of Irish society.
GENDER INEQUALITIES, SOCIAL EXCLUSION AND POVERTY
Looking back over the last ten years from 1997 to 2007, the Irish economy has been
characterised by two key features : high growth and deepening inequality.
Underlying these central trends is a rarely recognised gendered dimension reflected
in patterns of social exclusion and poverty :
-
significant rise in the risk and experience of poverty among certain sectors of the
population, particularly lone parents and older people, both of whom are
predominantly female
-
growing crisis in care provision, linked to both lack of availability and high cost,
in the context of low-level public provision, of both childcare and eldercare
services
-
growth in the scale of low-paid employment, particularly in private services
including retailing, tourism and personal services, traditionally areas of female
employment
-
continuing evidence of gender based discrimination in employment, particularly
in relation to pay and career development
The most recent survey of poverty published in December 2006 based on the 2005
EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) revealed that 6.8% of the
Irish population are living in consistent poverty and 19.4% of the population are at
risk of poverty i.e. living below 60% of the median average income level. Overall, the
at risk of poverty rate for women in 2005 was 21%, three points higher than that for
men at 18%. Notably that divergence has increased since 2003 when the rate for
women was 20% while for men it was 19%.
The EU-SILC 2005 survey shows that lone parents (around 90% of whom in Ireland
are women) now face the highest poverty risk with nearly half falling below 60% of
the median income level (the accepted measure of relative poverty across the EU).
This means that almost half of all lone parents have income levels of less than 60% of
average income. In addition, the EU-SILC survey showed lone parent households to
have the highest consistent poverty rate at over 30% compared with a national rate of
just under 7%. They reported the highest deprivation levels of all households with
children, with almost two-thirds of those at risk of poverty experiencing a significant
level of deprivation including 20% reporting they had debt problems arising from
ordinary living expenses and over 14% unable to pay for heating expenses in the
twelve months prior to the survey.
Those living alone, the majority of whom are older women, are the second group
most at risk of poverty, with 36% falling below the 60% median income measure. In
general older people have the highest risk of income poverty among all age-groups.
Older women currently constitute 16% of all women over 15 years of age, a
proportion which is likely to rise over the next fifteen years as a result of the
changing demographic profile of Ireland.
Anti-poverty and social inclusion policies are constructed on the basis that reducing
unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, and increasing employment
are the key strategies. This approach lacks an underlying gender analysis and
consequently marginalises significant sectors of women, and disadvantaged women
in particular, from its concern. Ireland has experienced a period of strong and
sustained paid employment growth, and women's paid employment has risen
particularly sharply. However neither of these important attainments have
fundamentally redressed the level of poverty and inequality in Ireland, and the
relatively high poverty rates among women in particular. The depth of income
inequality in Irish society is clearly evident from the EU-SILC 2005 Survey, showing
that the top income groups in Ireland had almost five times more income than the
lowest income group. This is noted as among the highest in EU and as a challenge
for Irish economic and social policy in the Joint Report on Social Protection and Social
Inclusion 2006 (EU Commission 2006). It is further pointed out that the success of a
strategy based on employment requires sustained investment in service provision,
notably childcare and elder care both of which impact most on women’s ability to
take up employment, as well as on the quality of that employment. Research
indicates that women account for the majority of those on minimum wage levels
highlighting the importance of continuing to increase these rates (at least linked to
inflation) and to ensure that those rates are enforced across the services sector. By
focusing now on specific sectors of women where disadvantage is concentrated it is
evident how the lack of a gender perspective contributes to a failure of policies to
successfully address poverty among women.
DISADVANTAGED WOMEN
High rates of poverty and disadvantage affect a range of different social groups of
women in Ireland including elderly women, lone parents, immigrant women,
women with disabilities, traveller women, women refugees and asylum seekers, low
paid and unemployed women. Among these, two groups constitute a significant
proportion (nearly 20%) of the population of women and represent sectors where the
risk of poverty is particularly high, estimated at 55% for women lone parents and
58% for women with disabilities. Low employment rates are evident in both groups,
particularly among women with disabilities. Among women lone parents
employment rates have risen over recent years and there is considerable evidence of
a shift in policy towards further increasing their employment rate and reducing
welfare supports.
Lone parents are a significant sector of the population in Ireland and experience a
particularly high risk of poverty with 55% falling below the 60% median income
level, according to EU-SILC data for 2005. There are over 150,000 lone parents
around 90% of whom are women, accounting for over 3% of the total population,
12% of all households and 20% of family units with young children in Ireland
(OPEN 2005). The numbers of lone parents with young children has increased from
88,000 in 1999 to 117,200 in 2004 - an increase of 25% - mostly accounted for by
increased numbers of women lone parents. Lone parents reported the highest
deprivation levels of all households covered by the 2005 EU-SILC data, for example
33% reported they could not afford to purchase new clothes, 31% that they had debt
problems arising from ordinary living expenses and 24% had been unable to pay for
heating expenses in the twelve months prior to the survey.
Much social commentary has associated the growth in the numbers of lone parents
in Ireland with increasing levels of teenage pregnancy and with the availability of
welfare payments. Statistical data however shows a different picture. In 2003, total
births were recorded at 61,517, 34% of which were to women who were not married
(single, co-habiting separated, divorced, widowed). 2,580 of these births were to
women lone parents aged 15-19 representing a birth rate of approximately 16.9 per
1000 young women in this age group. While a significant proportion of women lone
parents come from the youngest age group, 15-19 years, these figures are in line with
international and EU comparisons.
The level of teenage childbearing in Ireland cannot therefore be regarded as
high, either by the standards of other countries, or by Ireland's own recent
past (ESRI 2002).
The rate of lone parenthood in Ireland grew significantly in the decade before social
welfare entitlements were established during a time when adoption, emigration and
abortion were the most frequently availed of options for women with crisis
pregnancies. Establishing social welfare entitlement changed the options available to
young women lone parents rather than the rate of lone parenthood (McCashin 2005).
Women dependent on the One Parent Family Payment (OPFP - a welfare payment
introduced in the mid-1990s to consolidate previous payments to unmarried mothers
and deserted wives) have been receiving a reduced level of payment relative to the
national poverty line over recent years. However, an important change to the
administration of the OPFP was introduced in 1995 which allowed lone parents for
the first time to a limited amount of earned income without loss of welfare payment.
While this change created circumstances in which lone parents could access paid
employment, in reality the earnings disregard was set at a low level, did not keep
pace with inflation and consequently employment options have tended to be parttime and low paid.
Lone parents experience very specific disadvantages both in accessing and
participating on the labour market in Ireland. The greatest barrier to participation is
the lack of availability and the high cost of childcare. Public provision of childcare in
Ireland is extremely low, covering only 4% of pre-school children. While the Equal
Opportunities Childcare Programme (EOCP) has increased the level of availability of
childcare in geographically designated disadvantaged areas, lack of affordable and
flexible childcare provision continues to prevent many lone parents accessing paid
employment. Lack of childcare also acts as a barrier to participation in education and
training and consequently limits the job opportunities and earning possibilities for
significant numbers of lone parents.
Policy towards lone parents has been changing in Ireland over recent years. The
introduction of the earnings disregard in 1995 was the first significant move to
establish a policy based on encouraging lone parents into paid employment. At the
time of its introduction this policy initiative was significant in that it established the
right to combine a certain level of earnings with no loss of benefit. However it did
tend to encourage part-time employment and a low level of earnings, as referred to
above. In the years following its introduction, many lone parents accessed
employment and training programmes whose payment levels were under the
earnings threshold and for which the eligibility criteria had become more flexible (i.e.
no longer targeting just the long-term registered unemployed). Greater flexibility in
eligibility criteria represented an important policy initiative which opened up
important labour market programmes, for example the Community Employment
Scheme, to lone parents. While this kind of flexibility has been introduced in certain
active labour market schemes, others continue to operate criteria which restrict
access by important sectors of lone parents. For example, age thresholds applied to
VTOS (Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme), the BTEA (Back to Education
Allowance) and the BTWA (Back to Work Allowance) of 21 and 23 years of age mean
that young women lone parents cannot access these key schemes.
Other aspects of current policy also have an influence on labour market participation
rates among lone parents. The potential loss of secondary benefits can act as an
important disincentive to accessing paid employment for lone parents and
contribute to their level of disadvantage. In particular, rent supplement (paid to
those in the private rental sector deemed eligible) and the medical card (providing
entitlement to general and hospital medical services) are two key benefits that may
be withdrawn where specific (low level) income limits are breached. On the positive
side, the introduction of the minimum wage in 2000 (currently at the level of EURO
8.65 per hour) has improved the situation in some areas of low paid employment
and has benefited those lone parents accessing such employment. In a new policy
development in May 2004 a habitual residency clause was introduced into the Irish
social welfare system to coincide with the expansion of the EU to twenty-five
member States. This clause means that only those who have been resident in Ireland
for two years are eligible to draw social assistance welfare payments, including the
OPFP. Consequently, lone parent immigrants into Ireland (including those from
other EU countries) must prove continuous residence for two years prior to their
claim in order to establish eligibility for the OPFP.
Two policy changes are critical in order to reduce the level of disadvantage
experienced by women lone parents in Ireland : firstly the setting of a higher level of
earnings disregard indexed to inflation and secondly the development of a
comprehensive programme of childcare provision. It is also important to address the
system of secondary benefit entitlement through for example an entitlement for a
medical card for all children and to establish rights for immigrant women lone
parents. In the medium to longer term access to higher quality employment by
women lone parents will depend on improved training and educational
opportunities which would strengthen the position of those lone parents who are on
the labour market. At a broader level, policy change is required in order to ensure
that lone parents are not discouraged or prevented from establishing personal
relationships. A more individualised approach within the social welfare system
would bring an end to current practice which penalises lone parents who establish
close or co-habiting personal relationships.
Current policy towards lone parents reflects a contradiction evident in labour market
policy towards women generally. On the one hand there is the objective, supported
by recent policy changes, of increasing the employment rate of women, including of
lone parents. On the other, there is a continuing assumption of the provision of care
by, primarily women, in households or through the private market place, an
assumption reflected in a low level of public provision. These contradictory aspects
of policy are particularly evident in relation to lone parents towards whom there is
pressure to reduce their dependence on welfare through accessing employment
primarily and, to an extent training and education. But there is little evidence of a
parallel commitment to a publicly provided system of quality care which is essential
for lone parents to take up such opportunities.
Women with disabilities are another sector of women who experience high levels of
poverty and disadvantage. Profiling the situation of women with disabilities in
Ireland is limited by restrictions in data availability and also in the form in which
data is collected. In some important statistical sources those who define themselves
as disabled and those who define themselves as sick are grouped together in a single
category, making it impossible to separate these two quite different sectors. Recent
improvements in data collection systems have increased the level of available data
related to people with disabilities, including a gender breakdown.
Current data indicate that 10.6% of the female population in Ireland have a disability
- the equivalent percentage for males is 4.2%. The highest proportions of women
with a disability occurs in the older age groups : 11.5% in the 55-64 age group and
25.4% in the 65 + age group. Half of all disabled women are aged 65 or over. Poverty
risks among women and men with a disability are extremely high at 58% for women
and 52% for men. Among women, disabled women and older disabled women in
particular, consistent poverty and disadvantage is prevalent.
The labour force participation rate among women with a disability is extremely low.
Only one in eight disabled women are in paid employment. This compares to a
stronger, but also low rate, of one in four disabled men in paid employment. Both
these rates place Ireland at the lowest end of the EU spectrum in terms of
employment of people with disabilities (Gannon and Nolan 2004). Recent
newspaper coverage has revealed the appalling exploitation of people with
disabilities in sheltered workshops which has taken place over decades in Ireland
despite commitments in successive national social partnership agreements to change
the system.
A range of factors have been identified which act together to disadvantage many of
those with a disability from accessing employment. Lack of skills and educational
qualifications, employer attitudes, inaccessible workplaces, low level of provision of
accessible transport as well as welfare traps have been identified as critical factors by
the National Disability Authority (National Disability Authority 2004). For women
with disabilities these factors are particularly acute, in part linked to the dependent
status and traditional low level of employment of women in Ireland. Many disabled
women are categorised as dependents, with only 60% of women with a long term
condition receiving a welfare payment compared to 84% of men.
A recent study exploring the major concerns of people with disabilities in relation to
their low level of participation on the labour market highlighted a range of factors :
negative social attitudes, physical barriers, stigma associated with special schools,
employer attitudes and recruitment practices, lack of ongoing supports, lack of skills
in dealing with people with disabilities, lack of disability planning and research, lack
of effective legislation, effects of allowance and benefit system and disclosure issues
(Bruce 2004). These factors were identified by both women and men but there has
been no research to date to explore how these factors might operate differently
between women and men with disabilities. For example, negative social barriers are
potentially stronger towards women with disabilities whereas physical restrictions
may be less significant for women many of whom are likely to work in service
employment, particularly public services.
Low rates of educational participation are also evident among young people with
disabilities, although in this instance young women with disabilities have a higher
rate of participation than men. While comprehensive data on the situation of women
with disabilities in relation to access to training and education is not available, there
are reports which indicate that the marginalisation which women with disabilities
experience in relation to the labour market is confirmed by low levels of
participation in training and access programmes. A Report by the National
Rehabilitation Board in 1997 revealed that only 39% of the users of its Occupational
Guidance Service were women with disabilities and a survey by AHEAD in 2000
showed that 37% of participants in its third level access programme were women
(O'Connor and Barry National Disability Authority 2007).
Examining the situation of those with disabilities who are in paid employment,
recent analysis highlighted the way in which gender and disability interacts to create
specific conditions of disadvantage among women with disabilities on the labour
market. In effect the gender pay gap which persists across the economy is
exacerbated by a further gap in the earnings of women with disabilities.
When we look at men and women separately we see that among men there is
in fact effectively no difference in average weekly earnings between those
with a chronic illness or disability and those without. However there is a
difference among women, those reporting a chronic illness or disability
earning EURO 25 per week less on average than other women (Gannon and
Nolan 2005).
Equality legislation introduced in Ireland in the late 1990sand early 2000s provided
for protection from discrimination against people with disabilities in employment
and in the provision of services. While this legislation marked an important
recognition of discrimination in relation to people with disabilities its coverage was
limited due to the inclusion of a range of exemption clauses and the concept of undue
cost restricting the responsibilities of employers. At the present time the government
is in the process of implementing a specific piece of disabilities legislation
introduced after much controversy due to its lack of a fully rights based perspective.
The previous government launched a Disability Strategy in 2004 which has been
followed by the development of six sectoral plans setting out services to be provided
for people with disabilities covering health, transport, communications/marine,
welfare, employment and the environment. Budget 2005 launched a multi-annual
investment programme for the provision of eduction and health programmes,
representing additional expenditure of EURO 150 million in 2005 and EURO 900
million over the period 2006-2009. While this strategy represents important funding
commitments over this five year period, there is little evidence of a gender
perspective in the development of sectoral plans.
Dependence on welfare is the situation of the large majority of women with
disabilities, with a higher proportion on short-term allowances than is the case
among men with disabilities. In this context the working of the benefit system is
particularly important to women. Because the Irish welfare system remains to a
significant degree based on a male breadwinner model, women with disabilities are
directly and often negatively affected by the underlying assumptions of this model.
Under the present system, married and cohabiting women who become disabled
while working in the home are excluded from direct income maintenance supports
and have to depend on their partners/spouses. A consequence of this situation is
that without the status of direct claimant, many disabled women are excluded from
certain employment and training programmes. Women in receipt of Disability
Allowance who marry a partner in employment are likely to lose their entitlement
through the means test. Women who marry or cohabit with someone on Invalidity
Pension and Disablement Pension are also likely to lose their entitlement to that
Allowance. (National Disability Authority 2005)
Another key issue within the welfare system is the lack of a cost of disability payment
that would recognise the specific costs associated with disability and which would
potentially improve the situation of many disabled women. Such a payment would
alleviate the costs of equipment, living expenses such as heat and clothing and the
cost of personal and other forms of assistance. Given the high proportion of women
with disabilities among the older age groups, the lack of an independent right to an
old age pension is an important weakness of the current system. Similarly to the
issue faced by lone parents (and many other welfare claimants) the likely loss of
secondary benefits on taking up employment operates to trap women with
disabilities into long-term welfare dependence.
On a broader level, women in Ireland continue to carry the primary responsibility
for care. Of the estimated 100,000 carers in Ireland, the Carer's Association calculates
that 80% are women, of whom fewer than 13,500 receive financial support. Lack of
support services for those providing care, little provision for the cost of providing
care and the means testing of the carer's allowance all reflect underlying issues of
gender inequality within Irish society.
There is a direct relationship between women as carers and women's poverty.
The absence of supports and adequate financial payments for caring
continues the cycle of women being caught in a role that Irish society does not
value and reward (National Disability Authority 2005).
Women with disabilities constitute a sector of Irish society who experience very high
levels of poverty and social exclusion, reflecting disadvantage linked both to their
disability and their gender. Dependent on social welfare or on partners/spouses,
women with disabilities lack adequate independent income, have a low rate of
participation on the labour market and experience significant barriers in accessing
employment, training and education. Recent policy developments show an
increased commitment of resources towards disability services and supports as well
as a developing legislative and policy framework. However, while these initiatives
represent an important increase in the allocation of resources towards addressing
disadvantages experienced by people with disabilities, there is little evidence of a
gender perspective being brought to bear within the current policy framework. The
absence of gender disaggregated data in many instances, together with a lack of
focus on underlying gender inequalities, mean that women with disabilities are
likely to only partially benefit from the current policy framework.
SOME NEW DEVELOPMENTS
There have been some important developments over the last two years in social and
economic policy which are significant from a gender perspective. These include
some positive changes in policies towards child supports, leave entitlements for
parents in employment, minimum wage and low pay - all areas which are important
from the standpoint of social inclusion and gender equality. Budget 2006 introduced
significant increases in social welfare payments including a 17% increase in the
minimum unemployment assistance payment and, particularly significant from the
standpoint of women, a 17% increase in Carer's Benefit. This pre-election budget also
saw the introduction of new financial supports for parents of young children,
increases in child benefit and additional resources towards childcare facilities. A
child poverty and childcare package (valued at EURO 154m and EURO 314m in 2006
respectively) was announced in the Budget comprising :
-
Annual EURO 1000 payment in respect of each child up to six years of age to all
households irrespective of their labour market status commencing in 2006.
-
Additional expenditure on childcare is stated to contribute to the development of
50,000 new childcare places and training of 17,000 childcare workers by 2010.
-
Increased level of child benefit which took effect from July 2006 to new level of
EURO 150 per month (EURO 185 for third and subsequent children).
-
Earnings threshold for Family Income Supplement raised by EURO 19 to EURO
282.
-
Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance of EURO 40 per child.
-
Extended maternity leave entitlement (to be phased in over 2006 and 2007)
-
New tax relief for those earning incomes up to EURO 10,000 available to those
minding up to three children in their own homes were also introduced.
An important commitment, detailed in the new national agreement Towards 2016,
has potentially real significance for the economic position of women, who make up
the majority of those on social welfare payments in Ireland. This is a stated
commitment towards the indexation of the lowest social welfare rate for a single
person to a level of 30% of gross average industrial earnings. The agreement
indicates that welfare rates will be benchmarked at that level over a ten year period.
The practical implementation of this commitment can only be judged when the
details of forthcoming budgets are revealed. For older women on State pensions,
women lone parents and women in low income households the realisation of this
policy in practice over the coming decade has the potential to bring important
economic benefits. But what remains critical for women under the Irish social
welfare system is individual entitlement to payments and benefits rather than the
traditional household system which continues to characterise so many women as
dependents (See Chapter 2, Murphy and O' Connor). The lack of any commitment to
address such gender inequality reflects the lack of priority attached in the current
system to the issues which centrally affect women within economic and social
policy.
Under the terms of Toward 2016 two other important commitments, significant to
those on low pay in the Irish economy, have been made :
-
the National Minimum Wage (NMW) to be increased from the rate set in May
2005 of EURO 7.65 per hour to a rate of EURO 8.65 from March 2007.
-
a new Office of Director of Employment Rights Compliance (ODERC) is being
established which will have specific responsibility for ensuring the enforcement
of the NMW (together with other employment rights) and with gathering data
and commissioning research in relation to compliance with labour law and
labour standards. The number of Labour Inspectors is to be trebled from 31 to 90
by the end of 2007 and new harsher penalties for non-compliance are to be set
down. Legislation to protect whistleblowers is also promised.
While neither of these policies are gender specific, previous research has shown that
women account for the majority of those on low pay and would likely benefit from a
higher minimum wage rate particularly where enforcement systems are
strengthened. More recent research indicates that migrant workers, including
significant increased numbers from new EU accession States, are accounting for a
growing number of those in low paid unskilled jobs where issues of levels of
minimum payment and enforcement of labour standards are critical for both women
and men.
What has emerged over the last two years is an indication of a significant shift in
government thinking towards lone parent and other welfare dependent households
which, if implemented, would radically alter the situation of parents in low income
households, the large majority of whom are women. Details of this proposed new
policy approach is evident in the Government Discussion Paper : Proposals for
Supporting Lone Parents published in May 2006. Although presented as new policy
developments to be directed specifically towards lone parents, these policies are
likely in practice to be equally significant for other low income, welfare dependent
households, for example those in receipt of unemployment payments. The core
element of this change in policy is to ensure that a greater proportion of lone parents,
and both parents in welfare dependent households, enter training and employment
once their youngest child reaches between 5 and 7 years of age. Recent data indicates
that around one-third of all lone parents were in paid employment, including 48% of
lone parents with school going children in 2005. (Central Statistics Office May 2006).
For the large number of lone parents (around 90% of whom are women) there are
clear indications that their right and entitlement to long term welfare payments
under the One Parent Family Payment is to undergo significant change in future
policy development. This will potentially have a major impact on a large number of
women, many of whom may benefit from additional training and employment
opportunities but others who may find their opportunities for long term supported
parenting seriously curtailed. This policy document sets out a proposed new
Parental Allowance (PA) to replace the One Parent Family Payment and also to
abolish the Qualified Adult Allowance linked to other household payments, for
example Unemployment Assistance. Its proposal includes a new development under
which compulsory engagement with job facilitators once the youngest child reaches 5
years for all those on PA and an end to payments once the youngest child reaches 7
years. If the parent is not in employment or training at this stage it is proposed that
they are then to be transferred to Unemployment Assistance or a Back to
Work/Education Allowance.
Organisations representing Lone Parents have strongly stated that employment
participation should be a choice rather than an imperative and that the critical issue
of the provision of a comprehensive childcare system should underpin such choices.
In this context they have expressed concern at the thinking underlying this new
policy statement with its emphasis on making paid employment obligatory for many
lone parents and women in low income households in the future.
Reducing the expectation of long term benefit recipiency among new clients
of One Parent Family Payment and a more forceful assistance in employment
support policy are needed to help more lone parents into work (my italics
Department of Social Community and Family Affairs, 2006).
If implemented, these proposals represent a radical change in Irish social welfare
policy encompassing a welcome emphasis on individual entitlements (rather than
the traditional household system) but at the same time a proposed withdrawal of the
right to long term welfare support (clearly based on a compulsory system of taking
up training and employment) to parents of children over 5-7 years in low income
households - the large majority of those likely to be affected by such a change are
women.
ASPECTS OF SOCIAL POLICY
Having looked at key elements of economic policy it is important to examine some
of the linked areas of social policy and how they have developed over the past
decade. Historically, Ireland has had a strong tradition of an interventionist State.
From its strict controls of publications and broadcasting to its prohibition on divorce
and criminalisation of contraception and homosexuality, the State has played a
central role in determining how people lead their lives. There are many reasons why
this has been the case, perhaps particularly because of the interlocking Catholic
Church-State alliance on which this State was founded, linked to the fragile sense of
legitimacy of a State born of partition. The 1990s saw a much increased emphasis on
demands to develop an enhanced legislative and policy framework based on rights
and equality. New legislation on equality, new structures such as the Equality
Authority and the Human Rights Commission have all been outcomes of this
process.
Probably the most crucial point to make is that while the kind of equality legislation
that we have in place in this country is progressive and advanced in comparative
european terms, it hardly touches on a most fundamental area of inequality in this
society discussed above – economic inequality. In outlawing discrimination on a wide
range of grounds - gender, family status, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital
status, race, religion and membership of the Traveller community - equality
legislation has contributed to the creation of a new culture of rights, a growing
awareness of discrimination in all its forms and new systems to address
discrimination against different groups. It has been a hugely significant and positive
development in social policy over the last decade.
But what has also become increasingly evident is that it is the deepening economic
inequality which is the key aspect of equality and rights issues in this country today.
Our legislative framework protects individuals from discrimination but has little to
contribute to the protection of individuals and social groups from poverty,
disadvantage and deprivation. In fact, the opposite is the case. The strong
Constitutional protection for private property has been seen on many occasions to
act in a way as to undermine equality provisions, individual and social rights in
practice.
And there is a range of critical unresolved social issues which are important to
highlight. State regulation of private morality and individual choices is by no means
something of the past. Our legal framework gives primary place to the heterosexual
family based on marriage. As the Report published by the Equality Authority on
Same Sex Partnerships in 2004 highlights, this results in a wide range of
discriminations in relation to taxation, pensions entitlements, right to transfer
property, adoption rights, rights to act as next of kin, right to confer residency status
and so on. Equality legislation protecting individual from discrimination on the
grounds of sexual orientation is not strong enough, in practice, to overturn
provisions in other statutory legislation which favour marriage or disadvantage
other couples. Many of these discriminations affect co-habiting heterosexual couples.
All of them affect lesbian and gay same-sex partnerships.
It is particularly ironic that our social code is so firmly based on a traditional notion
of family when recent demographic data reveals that only 27% of households in this
State are in fact a mixed sex couple and children. Over two-thirds of all households
are in fact comprised of single people, young and elderly, lone parents, individuals
sharing, couples whose children have grown up and left the family home, extended
families of three generations, gay and lesbian individuals and couples. Equality
legislation protects against discrimination on the grounds of marital or family status,
but we are a very long way from a situation in which the rest of our legal framework
recognises and provides for the rights and needs of diverse families and households.
1. Looking at social policy from the perspective of women reveals another
crucial issue - that of reproductive rights. From the standpoint of feminism no
State has the moral or political authority to force compulsory pregnancy on
women and girls. The failure of this State to provide for abortion even under
the most minimal circumstances of the ‘X’ Case1i (when the life of a woman is
threatened by continuing the pregnancy) is a definite reminder that women’s
legal status within this State is uncertain and ambiguous – a situation which
no amount of equality legislation can fully redress. This country should go
down the road pioneered by the legislature in Canada – abortion should be
taken entirely out of the criminal and Constitutional legal codes and should
become a private social and physical health issue between a woman and her
medical and other advisors.
To paint an even bleaker picture of the circumstances facing too many women in this
country research on Concealed Pregnancy in Ireland by Catherine Conlon of WERRC
for the Crisis Pregnancy Agency in 2006 is particularly illuminating :
Eleven bodies of newborn babies reported in the Irish Times in the five year period
from 2000 to 2005 are documented in this research. Babies found in a shallow grave
in Mayo, in a house in Donegal, on a roadside in Antrim, on a beach and in a park in
Dublin (2), in a laneway and a shalow grave in Down (2), in a suburb of Limerick, on
wasteground and in a shalow grave in Cork and on a beach in Kerry. Four newborn
babies discovered outside a church in Leixlip, at a bus stop in Dublin, in hospital
grounds in Cork and in a GAA club in Ballymena.
What does this tell us about Irish society ? What does it tell us about women's
reproductive rights and reproductive health in Ireland ? Could there be any clearer
indication that reproduction for women in this country all too often continues to be
marked by secrecy and fear rather than based on rights, choices and care.
What underlies this shameful reality in Ireland are policies which are based on the
forced or compulsory continuation of pregnancy due to the way in which the State
actively impedes access to safe legal abortion services and to the stigma, isolation
and poverty faced by so many lone parents. Despite this hostile environment tens of
thousands of Irish women traveled to England for abortions during that same five
year period. And during the years 2000-2005 the Department of Justice, Equality
and Law Reform reported to the Irish Times that fifty women asylum seekers were
given permission to travel to Britain and provided with the necessary documents so
that they could avail of abortion services.
There is little attention paid to the consequences for women who travel to England
for abortion. Rather, the assumption is that because the option of going to England is
availed of by so many Irish women, there is no need to worry about the issue of
abortion services being provided within this State. It is worthwhile trying to imagine
a situation in which in order for people to access any other kind of health service
they were forced to travel outside the country to avail of it, to seek medical
assistance abroad without access to their medical files, to pay significant sums to
private clinics regardless of whether they are on the medical card or not and to carry
out the whole process in silence and secrecy. There would be a huge outcry - a
demand that the service would be available and accessible at home - radical and
progressive voices would clamour consistently for change.
But this is about women. It is about reproductive rights. It is about choice. And the
male dominated political and medical establishments have not had the courage, or
the will, to introduce even the most minimal abortion services in Ireland, despite the
protection afforded to them by successive judgements of the Supreme Court. The
guidelines of the Medical Council (the State's medical governing body) claim that
abortion is never necessary to preserve a woman's life despite cases through our
own courts (X and C cases) which clearly demonstrate the opposite. In the last year
yet another Irish woman is having her reproductive rights, her right to abortion,
judged by the courts. A courageous Irish woman has challenged the constitutional
ban on abortion in the European Court of Human Rights. This woman became
pregnant with twins. Tragically one died in the womb and the other was diagnosed
with severe and fatal foetal abnormalities. She traveled to Britain and had an
abortion. She is arguing that having to do so breaches her rights under Articles 3 and
8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Forcing a woman to carry a dead or fatally malformed foetus is, in the words of the
Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), cruel and degrading, and can result in her
being denied access to vital genetic analysis of foetal remains to determine any
possible implications for future pregnancies. In their legal submission in support of
this case, the US Centre for Reproductive Rights (CRR) refers to the International
Federation of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (FIGO - representing 100 countries
including Ireland) which has expressly recognised an ethical right to terminate a
severely malformed fetus, and that the right to terminate should rest primarily with
the parents. CRR states that
Restrictive and criminal abortion laws, including those that prohibit abortion
in cases of fetal impairment, violate women's fundamental human rights to
dignity, privacy, life and health (CRR Submission 2005)
The IFPA also emphasises the restrictive environment under which they operate
which prohibits them from providing information on abortion to women over the
phone or via the internet (only in one-to-one counselling). This, they argue, is
particularly problematic for rural women who are made to travel to get abortion
advice. In their submission on the D/Z Case, the CRR argues that Ireland's
Regulation of Information (Services Outside the State for the Termination of
Pregnancies) that prohibits advocating or promoting abortion constitutes a restriction
on health providers from discussing and fully evaluating treatment options with
their patients and to recommend courses of action based on independent medical
judgement and their patients best interests. In their view it infringes upon a woman's
right to receive comprehensive and objective information about their health,
expressing a medical opinion, as well as to make informed decisions on the basis of
such information, and consequently violates a woman's fundamental rights, the
duties and legal and ethical principles in a provider-patient relationship.
Criminalising abortion ,they argue, places a stigma on necessary health care
discouraging women from follow-up care and results in many women keeping their
full health history from their doctors. Forcing Irish women to travel for abortion
services has resulted in a higher percentage of Irish women having late abortions as
well as receiving less pre-abortion and follow-up medical care. And of course there
are huge costs. Accessing abortion services in Britain costs between around 1500
EUROS acting as a severe financial constraint on those on low incomes or living at or
below the poverty line.
And it is important to be clear. Inaction by politicians cannot be excused by
references to public opinion. In the most recent survey of popular opinion, the Crisis
Pregnancy Agency carried out a national survey in 2003 of 18 to 45 year olds and
found :
-
51% thought a woman should always have a choice to have an abortion
-
39% though a woman should have a choice in certain circumstances
-
8% thought that a woman should never have the choice
-
2% expressed no opinion
There are other areas of reproductive rights and health which operate to
discriminate against specific women (and men) and which are only available
generally under private health clinics and not through public provision. Assisted
reproduction or fertility services in Ireland discriminate against lesbians and gay
men who are denied access to most of their programmes. Artificial insemination by
partner or donor is rarely available to lesbians and single women in Ireland. IVF
treatment is only publicly available in this country to heterosexual couples - another
situation which forces people to bring secrecy and non-disclosure into their dealings
with health providers or to travel outside the country (see Chapter 6 O' Connell).
A recent positive development has been the Report from the Commission on
Assisted Human Reproduction's report in 2006 which recommended that fertility
treatment should be available on a non-discriminatory basis, regardless of family
status and sexual orientation and should be provided through the public as well as
the private health system. Given the history of non-action by successive Irish
governments, even in cases where the highest court rulings have been made, it is
likely that yet another court case will be necessary to turn this recommendation into
a reality. An area of social policy in which the privileging of marriage and
discrimination against single people, co-habiting and same-sex couples is adoption
policy. Guidelines operated under the Irish Adoption Board operate in a range of
restrictions. Co-habiting and same-sex couples are not provided for as adopters. It is
extremely difficult for the child of a marital relationship to be adopted.
Until reproductive rights and health are firmly placed on the equality and human
rights agendas in this country, we will continue to operate under a frameworks
which in critical and important ways are gender blind and discriminatory. Women’s
human rights are in a quite fundamental way tied to bodily integrity and bodily
autonomy – an equality and human rights agenda which fails to base itself on a
gender informed analysis of power and rights will not succeed in bringing social
justice into social relations.
CONCLUSION
Irish society has gone through a period of extremely rapid social and economic
change over the last ten years. Policy and legislative frameworks have gone through
a process of reform, but it is a fragmented and incomplete process. A gender equality
perspective is sometimes applied in the policy-making process but fundamental
areas of economic and social policy are gender blind. A consequence of this is that
many women have failed to benefit from recent economic and social development
and remain trapped in situations of poverty and disadvantage. Equality legislation
represents a major breakthrough in the Irish policy framework but it has yet to be
accompanied by changes in other areas of statutory legislation and policy which
would ensure greater gender equality and reproductive rights in practice, as well as
an end to discrimination towards the majority of households composed of single
people, same-sex and co-habiting heterosexual couples.
Notes
Chapter 1
The current legal status of abortion in Ireland is as follows: A 1992 Supreme Court ruling on the X
case – involving a 14 year old rape victim who sought an abortion in the UK - concluded that abortion
in Ireland was permissible where there was a substantial risk to the life of the pregnant woman,
including a threat of suicide. In a 2002 referendum, a proposal to reverse the X-case judgment was
rejected. People further voted to end a ban on abortion information and to endorse the right of
women to travel abroad for an abortion. As yet, however, legislation has not been put in place to
reflect the 1992 ruling.
i
Chapter 2