Women have made a major contribution to recent growth in the economy and, in the process, improved their own earnings position, Prof Frances Ruane of Trinity College, Dublin, has told an equality conference in Dublin. Over the past six years 100,000 more women have entered the workforce, the vast majority of them married women who had previously worked in the home.
The gap in earnings between men and women has closed significantly during the 1980s and women were now accounting for around 50 per cent of the workforce in high-growth areas like services and the computer industry, she said.
However, while women accounted for 55 per cent of workers in the computer sector, they accounted only for 40 per cent of those in core activities, like computer engineering. This reflected the fact that only a third of graduates in computer science were women.
While women are relatively well-represented in courses on information technology and software design, they are virtually absent from courses on software engineering or computer systems. This pattern reflects an overall gender balance in third-level courses on science and engineering subjects.
Women now constitute 50 per cent of science students but fewer than 20 per cent of those in engineering.
Prof Ruane said that this is partly due to the poorer quality of maths teaching for girls at second level. She was also critical of the failure of the school system to meet the needs of working parents.
There had been an understandable concentration on the lack of creche facilities, but the situation was equally critical when in came to care facilities for older children. Most schools close by 3 p.m.
She singled out flexible working patterns and after-school programmes for children as areas where society must help parents balance the demands of work and home life in a satisfactory way.