Irish women are at greater risk of poverty than their counterparts in any other EU member-state, according to a study published yesterday by the European Commission.
The Report on Gender Equality between Men and Women found that 23 per cent of Irish women are at risk of poverty, compared with 19 per cent in Britain, 16 per cent in France and 12 per cent in Germany.
The report defines someone as being at risk of poverty if their disposable income (including social payments) is less than 60 per cent of the national median disposable income. According to this calculation, 20 per cent of Irish men are at risk of poverty, the second highest figure in the EU.
Ireland calculates poverty differently to other EU countries but officials at Eurostat, the EU's statistical agency, said that the difference in methodology would not affect Ireland's ranking.
Prof Brian Nolan of the ESRI agreed, suggesting that the reason behind the high number of those at risk of poverty in Ireland is that social welfare recipients have lagged behind those in employment in terms of income increases.
"What has been driving that is that over the past 10 or 15 years, you have seen real incomes rise dramatically, particularly for those in employment. Those on social welfare have seen their incomes rise faster than prices but more slowly than average incomes," he said.
Prof Nolan said that the higher level of poverty risk among women could probably be explained by the greater number of women on old age pensions who live alone.
Ireland's 19 per cent gap between the proportion of men and women in employment is higher than the EU average but the pay gap of 14 per cent is slightly lower than the average.
Women make up a smaller proportion of parliamentarians in Ireland than in all but four of the 25 member-states and the proportion of women in Irish management jobs is lower than the EU average. EU leaders will discuss yesterday's report when they meet in Brussels next month.
The commission yesterday called on member-states to incorporate the goal of gender equality more effectively into national policies on employment, pensions, immigration and other issues.