Ireland rated 16th in bridging of gender gap

Ireland has been ranked 16th out of 58 countries in terms of success in bridging the gender gap.

However, the study - the first to attempt to quantify the "gender gap" - ranks Ireland badly in terms of the opportunities open to women to participate on a level with men in the workforce.

Titled Women's Empowerment: Measuring the Global Gender Gap, the report was presented in London yesterday by the World Economic Forum. It covers all 30 OECD countries and 28 other emerging markets and will also be presented in New York on May 26th.

Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Finland are ranked at the top of the list as the countries with the smallest "gender gap". Ireland scores ahead of the United States, Luxembourg and South Africa but behind Scandinavia, Estonia and Britain.

The size of the gap between women and men is measured in five areas based on the United Nations Development Fund for Women's findings of global patterns of inequality between men and women. These are economic participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment and health and wellbeing.

It finds that while Ireland does relatively well in terms of equality in educational attainment - coming 9th - it is weaker in political empowerment (12th), health (12th) and economic participation (37th) and very weak on equality of economic opportunity (51st).

Only such countries as Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Korea have a worse record than this country's in economic opportunity while such countries as Colombia, Uruguay and Romania do better than us.

Economic participation differs from economic opportunity in that participation refers to presence in the workforce, whereas opportunity refers to the quality of economic involvement and potential for career advancement.

In those countries that score badly on economic opportunity, the report says that "women may gain employment with relative ease" but "their employment is concentrated in either poorly paid or unskilled job 'ghettos' characterised by the absence of upward mobility and opportunity.

"This is most commonly the result of negative or obstructive attitudes and of legal and social systems which use maternity laws and benefits to penalise women economically for childbirth and childcare responsibilities and discourage - or actively prevent - men from sharing family responsibilities."

Overall, Ireland is ranked among the top 25 "women-friendly" countries. The top scoring countries - the Nordic nations - are "characterised by strong liberal societies, protection of minority rights and comprehensive welfare systems". It remains, however, "a disturbing reality" that in spite of growing awareness of gender issues, no country has closed the gap.

"Countries that do not capitalise on the full potential of one half of their societies are misallocating their human resources and undermining their competitive potential," say authors Augusto Lopez-Claros and Saadia Zahidi.