Equality is some distance away yet, it seems.
The gap in money earned by men and women in Ireland has increased in recent years and is now just under 15%, according to figures released by Eurostat, the EU’s official statistics body.
The figures show that men in Ireland earned 14.4% more than their female counterparts in 2013, an increase of 1.8% on 2008 and a little below the EU average of 16.4%, which is a slight decrease from the 2008 figure of 17.3%.
The data, which was released to coincide with International Women’s Day this weekend, shows that some EU countries are far ahead of others when it comes to equality of earnings.
The pay gap in Slovenia is as low as 3.2%, while the likes of Italy (7.3%), Croatia (7.4%) and Belgium (9.8%) are all under 10%.
In contrast, the gender gap in some EU countries is alarming.
In Germany, for example, the figure stands at 21.6%, while Austria (23%), Czech Republic (22.1%) and Estonia (29.9%) – where the gap is most apparent – are also well above the average.
The data also showed that Ireland was below the EU average when it came to the percentage of both males and females in full and part-time employment.
70.9% of Irish males between the ages of 20 and 64 were employed in Ireland in 2013, just short of the EU average of 74.2%, while 60.3% of females were in full or part-time employment, again just short of the EU average of 62.6%.
Interestingly, there was a gap of over 20% in the amount of females (34.2%) compared to males (12.7%) in part-time employment in Ireland in 2013.
All of those figures and more interesting data can be accessed in the Eurostat study here.
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