“The harsh reality is that you are more likely to be poor if you’re a girl,” Jim Clarken, CEO of Oxfam Ireland told a seminar at Dublin’s Mansion House on Thursday.
How harsh this reality can be was underlined by Linda Greene, coordinator of the Clondalkin Women’s Network, who told the Women and Economic Inequality seminar that some women in Ireland “have turned to prostitution to pay the bills”.
She said that many women are dealing with the “return of the boomerang generation, crèche fees are well beyond the reach of communities like ours and community crèches can’t cope with the demand”.
She said some women are going hungry. “Food, shelter and safety are absolute basics and the level of deprivation women in Ireland are going through is shameful.”
The effects of the economic downturn on lone parents was particularly alarming, said Alice-Mary Higgins of the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI). She participated in the seminar along with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), Oxfam Ireland and the European Women’s Lobby.
“We saw in last week’s CSO Survey on Income and Living Conditions that 63 per cent of lone parents are experiencing deprivation. Now the CSO Household Finance and Consumption Survey 2013 underlines that lone parents are simply being left to lag behind.”
Households with one adult and children are burdened by more debt than all other types of households, according to the survey released on Thursday.
Suzanne Griffin of Siptu was also perturbed by the economic realities women face. “Low pay is endemic for women in the hospitality, cleaning and retail sectors. More women are being pushed into insecurity,” she said.
“Zero-hours contracts have been the worst results of austerity for working women,” said Ms Griffin. “From one week to another a woman won’t know how long she’ll be working. She will arrive at a time she is never certain of and pick up stuff left by people she will never meet.”
Mary Collins of the European Women’s Lobby told the seminar, organised as a precursor to the NWCI/IHREC conference “Have Your say on Beijing +20” in Dublin Castle next month, said that “austerity is a deliberate political choice, so it can change”.
She said that one in four women in Europe experience or are at risk of poverty and there is not a single country in Europe where there is not a gender pay gap.
“Up to one third of women in Europe have no pension,” she said.
“Without economic equality it is impossible for women to participate fully in society,” said Orla O’Connor, NWCI director.
“We’re moving out of recession, so this is a really important time to have this discussion now because there are important changes to be made.”
