Cracking
the glass ceiling
From BELFAST TELEGRAPH January 25th, 2000
By MAURICE NEILL, Business Correspondent
THE majority of the 1.6 million people who live in Northern Ireland are
female. Girls do better at school than boys and more women are working than
men. But though equality legislation is more than 20 years old, women remain
at the bottom when it comes to pay and opportunity. But the 21st Century
may see real pressure applied to the 'glass ceiling.'
Around 618,000 people here have a job but men occupy the vast majority of
the powerful, full-time, well paid and pensionable positions in both private
and public sectors. The average wage for men is £368 a week but just £278
for women, and a much higher proportion of women than men occupy the least
rewarding jobs in healthcare, catering, cleaning and retailing. Some 40%
of women work part-time compared to just 12% of men.
Women are markedly under represented among the decision makers. One study
of 1,000 'movers and shakers' included just 27. The province has no women
representatives at Strasbourg or Westminster.
Though two of 11 Ministers in the Executive are women - Brid Rodgers and
Bairbre de Brun - none of the committee chairs, and just 14 of 108 Assembly
members, are women. Only 86 of 582 local councillors are women and three
of the 26 local government bodies are all male.
Women make up around a third of the 3,000 people serving on public bodies,
but 17 of the 141 organisations are all male. Of the 268 people who fall
within the most senior grade of the Northern Ireland Civil Service just
16 are women. Only one of 10 permanent secretaries is a woman. Only three
of 159 Royal Ulster Constabulary superintendents are women.
None has reached a higher rank, though six police women were killed during
the Troubles. The vice-chancellors of the two universities are men and just
35 of 306 professors are women. The vast majority of primary school principals
are men, though three quarters of teaching staff are women.
Only two of Business Telegraph's Top 100 Companies are run by women and
just two of 16 officers and committee members of the Northern Federation
of Small Businesses are women. The six provincial newspapers and broadcasting
organisations are managed by men and only one of 13 Government information
officers is a woman, though almost a third of the 713 members of the National
Union of Journalists are women.
While it is widely recognised that social change is slow analysis of the
growing volume of statistics suggests Northern Ireland may be among the
slowest regions in Europe. In the Irish Republic women have come far and
fast since their role was defined by the 1939 constitution and the three
'silent sisters' in the Dail.
The country has elected women - Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese - at the
last two Presidential elections. Mary Harney, deputy Prime Minister and
leader of the Progressive Democrats, is the most senior of two women in
the 15-member government and two of 17 junior Ministers are women.
INEZ McCormack, is president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, one
of the social partners at the heart of government pay and economic policy,
and women are taking an increasing share of the senior jobs in both public
and private sectors. However, academics say women still face widespread
prejudice and poverty in the Republic, which needs to be addressed by constitutional
change, new laws and well funded public policies in education and childcare.
Ultimately, whether by choice or necessity, women in both parts of Ireland
women undertake more than their fair share of society's mundane and least
rewarding tasks. Social scientists say the traditional model of men as breadwinners
and women as homemakers is 'deeply ingrained'.
The Women's Working Lives Survey conducted in Northern Ireland in 1990 found
that even where a woman is the only wage earner in a family she is often
responsible for raising children and household chores. |
