/ / International Women’s Day 2011 March 8th

International Women’s Day 2011 March 8th

‘The centenary of International Women’s Day is an historic milestone on the journey towards equality for women. While much progress has been made on securing greater rights for women, there are still barriers preventing women from having the same opportunities as men in a range of areas’ said Renee Dempsey, CEO of the Equality Authority.

‘Many more Irish women have entered the labour market but they are still paid less than men and have less access to more advantaged positions. Equality Authority research has shown that – on a like for like basis – women are paid 8% less per hour than their male counterparts and women are still under-represented at the higher levels within occupations. In fact men are twice as likely as women to occupy senior and middle management positions’ continued Ms Dempsey.

‘The Equality Authority, working with employers, trades unions, businesses and NGOs is developing innovative and practical ways to promote opportunities for women and to protect them against discrimination. We are currently supporting a number of projects to promote and defend women’s equality in the current challenging environment, such as

  • supporting TASC to assess the gender impact of the last budget and to prepare a fully costed equality-friendly budget. This project will be completed towards the end of 2011;
  • producing, with IBEC, a maternity tool-kit for employers. The tool-kit provides practical advice for employers on supporting new parents within their workforce;
  • working with the Commercial Mushroom Producers and SIPTU to develop equality capacity within the mushroom picking sector and to protect the employment rights of female migrant mushroom pickers;
  • working with One Family, Marks and Spencer, Boots, Superquinn and Retail Ireland to develop a best practice tool-kit on employing lone parents in the retail sector.

We have prepared and published new guides on maternity leave, parental leave and adoptive leave as well as on equality rights. In a further development, these guides will be available shortly in 14 other languages and formats.

These projects have all been funded through the European Social Fund and the EU’s PROGRESS fund.

Ends.