Engendering economic statistics Rome December 12, 2007 General issues Gerry Brady, CSO Ireland

Objective Issue is equal opportunity to work and equal conditions rather than equal employment rates Individual discretion to make personal life choices with regard to employment are important – societal conventions restrict these

Environment barriers In disability, environmental barriers are factors such as inaccessible transport, no lifts, lack of special tuition etc. These are the problems rather than the problem being in a wheelchair or having a learning difficulty ... or having care and family responsibilities

Gender work barriers Attitudes of other people Factors limiting educational attainment such as your parents attitudes to the importance and value of your schooling Inequal access to transport to enable women to get to work Care obligations Role taken in family life

Barriers within employment Inflexible working arrangements Work imposed consequences of having a baby Limited IT access to workplace from home Negative attitudes of work colleagues Lack of women in managerial and decision-making positions within the company and the business/policy sectors

Data implications Barriers can be used as topics for developing new indicators Barriers can be much harder to measure than more typical indicators such as employment rates

Consequences for women Lower employment rates Lower pay Less satisfying work Less career progression Occupational segregation Pensions pressure towards later retirement if earlier absences from work

More specific topics Entrepreneurship and self-employment Occupations Pay and paid working hours Formal vs informal employment Social security & pension contributions Employment security and benefits Decision-making

Entrepreneurship Issues Willingness to become an entrepreneur Economic areas women become entrepreneurs in State advisory support and funding access for women entrepreneurs Access to networks

Specific topics ctd. The relevance and importance of specific employment topics varies depending on the economic and statistical development of the country Each country should give priority to the indicators of most relevance to itself Useful to have benchmark data from other countries

Specific topics ctd. Need a range of classification variables within your data file to really understand and identify the most needed new policy initiatives and employment protections e.g. age groups, marital status, family situation, educational attainment, nationality and ethnicity, etc