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The reasons for Ireland’s conservativeness toward women's employment are rooted deeply in the traditional Irish culture, the Catholic Church, and the status quo. The lack of social policies to aid women balancing home and work responsibilities make being a working mother nearly impossible for Irish women. 

How many women Participate in Ireland's Workforce?

• Married women in Ireland participate in the labor force less than half as often as wives in most other European countries.

• Although the number of working women in Ireland is on the rise, it is not increasing at a rate even close to that of other countries. 

• In 1997, women in Ireland made only 64.37 percent of what men made, on average. 

• This combined with the high cost of private childcare and taxation issues serve as disincentives for women to work outside of the home.  

What affects do Ireland's Traditional Sex Roles and the Catholic Church's dominance have on women in Ireland?

• Most developed countries place a higher value on paid work, while Ireland is the opposite, placing more importance on the home life and less on employment. 

• In 1980, the Pope gave a speech at Limerick telling females “not to listen to those who tell them that working at a secular job, succeeding in a secular profession is more important than the vocation of giving life and caring for life as a mother”. 

• In a country so devoutly catholic that places such an emphasis on religion, comments like the Pope made restrict women’s sense of autonomy. 

What Social Policies are in Place in Ireland to help Women balance work and family?

• The lack of sufficient childcare and parental leave policies in Ireland makes the decision to work outside of the home less feasible for mothers. 

• Ireland has one of the lowest rates of formal state provision of childcare in the European Union. 

• There are some European directives in place that each country is required to abide by, such as the Parental Leave Directive and Part-Time Work Directive.

• The government of Ireland does little above the bare minimum required to help families reconcile the work-family balance. 

• There have been some strides made in the recent past, such as NOW (New Opportunities for Women), which was funded by the European Union, and the Pilot Child care Initiative for Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Communities (for more on this program, refer to our Child Care Policies page.   These programs encouraged retraining women to enter the workforce and included childcare provision as an important component in this retraining process. 

• These two programs ran with success and have shown that quality childcare is necessary in a nation with working women.

What type of Maternal leave policies exist in Ireland?

• More policies are needed to allow new mothers to breastfeed for a sufficient, healthy amount of time.   

• Doctors stress the importance of exclusively breastfeeding babies until the age of six months.  Ireland, however, has a rate of only 26 percent of babies that are breastfed at the age of one month. 

• Currently, Irish women are given 18 weeks of 70 percent of earnings paid leave and an additional 8 weeks unpaid leave.  This length of time is completely inadequate for the health of the baby, but employed women have no choice. 

• Returning to work is proven to be directly related to cessation of breastfeeding.  Breastfeeding rates would undoubtedly go up if women were given adequate maternity leave. 

For more information on Europe's policies for working women, refer to this site:http://leur-lex.europa.eu

Sources:

       Evans, M. D. R., Jonathan Kelley and Bernadette C. Hayes. 2000. "Family Values and Labor Force 

             Participation: Ireland in International Perspective." Gender Issues 18(1):51­76.

       Galtry, Judith. 2003. "The Impact on Breastfeeding of Labour Market Policy and Practice in Ireland, Sweden

             and the USA." Social Science & Medicine 57(1):167­177.

       Lewis, Suzan and Janet Smithson. 2001. "Sense of Entitlement to Support for the Reconciliation of

             Employment and Family Life." Human Relations 54(11):1455­1481.

       Murphy­Lawless, Jo. 2000. "Changing Women's Lives: Child Care Policy in Ireland." Feminist Economics

             6(1):89­94.

      Wills, Clair. 2001. “Women, domesticity and the family: Recent feminist work in Irish Cultural Studies.”

            Cultural Studies 15(1):33-57.

Brie Thomson, Amanda Cooke, Leeann Pratka, Tierney St. John
This website is a collaboration of undergraduate college students from Tulane University for a class project. 
The purpose of this website is to showcase our findings from our research on the family-work paradigm in Ireland.  We hope to bring awareness to current issues in today's society.  By doing this we hope that people will expand our research and explore these issues that affect our world today.

Last updated: December 17, 2006