Sunday marks International Women’s day, an opportune time to reflect on gender equality issues and the latest data on this topic.
Last July the CSO issued their annual ‘Women and Men in Ireland’ report and included for the first time a new index summarising gender equality in Ireland and comparing this to levels across the EU.
The index, compiled by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), is informative. It ranges from 1, indicating total inequality, to 100, indicating complete gender equality.
Overall, Ireland was ninth highest of the EU27 member states in 2010 with a score of 55.2. The EU27 average score was 54. The highest scores on the index were for Sweden, Denmark and Finland with scores above 70. The lowest scores were in Romania and Bulgaria with scores below 40 (see map).
Within the index, Ireland scored above the EU27 average on the domains of work, money, knowledge and time and had the highest score among the EU 27 member states on the health domain at 96.4. However, on the domain of power, Ireland scored 26.5, the ninth lowest score and well below the EU27 average of 38.
While not a perfect measure (no index ever is!), the results are telling. They point towards visible gaps, in Ireland and elsewhere on gender equality, and the difference between what is in Ireland (a score of 55.2) and what is possible in other EU member states (scores of 70+), suggests there remains a lot more room for improvement.