Patrick Smyth crunches the Eurofound numbers

PERHAPS NO single contributory factor has transformed the position of Irish women more than their changing role in the workplace. In the mid-1980s one third of women of working age were part of the labour force, today three fifths are in paid work. And the proportion of women describing their economic situation as on "home duties" has plummeted from 62 per cent in 1971 to 30 per cent in 2008.

The EU set a target for women in employment at 60 per cent by 2010, a target that was met by Ireland in 2007 and 2008, although not in 2009 when the employment rate for women fell to 57.8 per cent, close to the EU average. At the top of the EU league are Danish women (74 per cent) while Malta lags at the bottom (37 per cent).

This four-decade transformation has been reflected in profound changes in relations between men and women as women were economically empowered, while the social milieu of the workplace also gave many a new confidence, new possibilities, and a strong sense of their autonomy.

Participation and equality did not, however, march hand in hand, and women remain significantly disadvantaged in the workplace and in juggling their work-life balance, not least in the sharing of domestic and childrearing responsibilities.

During the 1970s women's participation in the labour force began to soar, largely initially with the abolition of the marriage bar for women in public service jobs. Between 1971 and 1991 the number of women in the workforce grew by 100,000, and between 2001 and 2009 by 183,000 to reach 850,00.

Women's income in Ireland in 2007 was around two-thirds of that of men, and after adjusting for the longer hours worked by men, women's hourly earnings were around 87 per cent of men's. The gender pay gap in Ireland is slightly below the EU average of 17.4 per cent. (Italy, the lowest at 4.4 per cent while Estonia, the highest at 30.3 per cent).

At European and Irish level men remain the main breadwinners in the family by more than two to one, although in Ireland twice as many (13 per cent) as in Europe say they contribute equally. But the data, based on individuals' claims about their roles, curiously reflects conflicting irreconcilable statements - three quarters of Lithuanian men say they are the main provider in their homes, while more than half of their female compatriots insist it is them.

In 2004, women worked for an average of 31.9 hours a week, and this fell to 30.8 hours in 2009. For men, the reduction was from 41.3 hours a week in 2004 to 39.5 in 2009.

The gender imbalance in the working week is striking, reflecting how many women still only work part-time - in Ireland women are one fifth as likely (5.6 per cent of them) as men to work over 45 hours a week, while nearly five times as likely (42 per cent) only to work between 10 and 30 hours a week. At EU level only 29 per cent of working women are in the latter category, in the Netherlands and UK, 53 and 46 per cent respectively.

In 2009 21.1 per cent of employed women were in clerical and secretarial occupations, compared to 5.6 per cent of men. Professional occupations were the most gender-balanced with women representing 50.2 per cent. Craft and related occupations were the least gender-balanced with men representing 96.1 per cent of workers

The education and health sectors employ the highest proportion of women. In the latter, four in five of the workforce, and the former, 84 per cent. But despite this, women are not well represented at senior level positions: only 33 per cent of medical and dental consultants are women and 52 per cent of primary school managers

One of the key changes in the workforce as women's participation rises is the number of women bosses - in Ireland 30 per cent of workers report to a woman, while half of women workers do so, reflecting the reality that women are more likely than men to work for a woman. EU-wide a slight, gradual increase in the percentage of women superiors has been visible: from 20 per cent in 1995 to 25 per cent in 2005.

The range is broad: while 40 per cent of Finnish workers work under women (and 24 per cent in the EU), in Germany and France only 18 per cent do so.

The workplace is still not the most sympathetic place for ambitious women.While more than a third of Irish, British and Danish women say they see good prospects of advancements in their respective jobs, less than a quarter of women in Italy, Spain, Sweden, Greece and "New Europe" are as confident - in Hungary only 16 per cent.

Irish women workers are the most likely in Europe to say they are well paid for the work they do (59 per cent), while Hungarians, the least (16 per cent). 87 per cent of Irish women express satisfaction with their working conditions.

While a fifth of Irish women say their work affects their health - and 16 per cent say it stresses them three times that number do so in Poland.

Responsibilities in the home are certainly not shared equally between men and women, women being much more likely to report involvement in caring activities, either of children or dependent family, on a daily basis.

Women also spend much more time on domestic duties. In the EU women report spending 33 hours per week and men 18 hours in caring for and educating children, while women say they spend 18 hours a week cooking and doing housework, as against ten hours a week for men.

In Ireland 82 per cent of women and 40 per cent of men say they spend an hour or more every day doing household chores and cooking (EU - 79 to 29 per cent, while in the Czech Republic only 8.6 per cent of men do so).

Almost half (48 per cent) of those in paid employment in the EU say that at least several times a month they are too tired as a result of their work to do household jobs, while nearly a quarter (22 per cent) say they are too tired several times a week.

Similar but smaller proportions of workers say that they had difficulties in fulfilling their family responsibilities because of the amount of time they spend in work: no general differences are found between men and women, in part because difficulties with work-life balance are clearly related to the number of hours worked. Indeed, men are more likely to be among the quarter of EU workers who feel that they spend too much time in work

While men work longer hours than women in their paid jobs, when paid and unpaid hours are added together, it is women who work the longest number of hours even among part-time women workers

Data drawn from: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (www.eurofound.europa.eu): European Working Conditions Survey (2005), and European Quality of Life Survey (2007)

That was then, This is now Change in Ireland, 1949-1999