Paul O'Donoghue

IRELAND HAS A gender pay gap. It’s a fact which is borne out again and again, in study after study.

The best figures we have put the earnings difference at about 10%.

But men and women largely get paid the same, for the same work. While there are likely some fringe cases, discriminating based on gender is illegal in Ireland and is unlikely to account for the earnings differential.

A key reason is much more systemic, making it harder to tackle. And that is – childcare.

Studies have shown that early career earnings for men and women in Ireland tend to be roughly similar.

It’s only when women reach an age where they’re more likely to have children, that a gap opens up.

This is neatly summed up by a study published earlier this month by the ESRI: “Despite rising female participation rates in Ireland, a significant gender income gap persists.

“[This is] primarily driven by lower female participation rates and a higher incidence of part-time employment. This gap often starts after the birth of a child and continues throughout a woman’s lifetime.”

Essentially – after women have a child, they tend to work fewer hours compared to men. This leads to lower earnings.

This has been found in multiple studies, such as one carried out by economists at Maynooth university and published in 2022.

There is a small gender gap for women without children compared to men, around 5% depending on the industry. But for mothers, the difference is dramatic.

Women with children saw their earnings fall by 27% immediately after childbirth, with this gap often remaining for the rest of their careers. There was no such impact for fathers.

Lower hours worked may not be the only reason for the gender pay gap. As mentioned, there was a difference even between women without children and men.

But the effect of hours worked seems to have the biggest single impact on the pay gap between men and women.

So, once a woman has a child, she typically takes off far more time than the father. She then probably works fewer hours compared to the father from then on, with this often attributed to the fact that she will likely do twice as much childcare and homework compared to the father.

A fix?

How can this be rectified? While there’s unlikely to be a silver bullet, a good way to start would probably be to improve paternity leave.

The ESRI study referenced earlier goes into this in some detail.

First glaring difference right off the bat – paid maternity leave for mothers is 26 weeks. By contrast, paternity leave for fathers is just paid for two weeks.

The ESRI found a staggering 94% of mothers take their full 26 weeks maternity leave. By contrast, only 53% of fathers take the two weeks of paid paternity leave on offer.

Obviously, no one is arguing for a reduction in maternity leave. Women need time off after giving birth, both to recover physically and to bond with their child.

The goal should be to improve paternity leave. Both to give the father time with their child as well, and to also ensure that they can share a more equal amount of childcare with the mother.

This is the case in the likes of the Nordic countries such as Norway, where fathers are entitled to 15 weeks, or Sweden, where both parents get a pool of 480 days of leave, and both are entitled to 240 each.

So how would this address the gender pay gap? Again, the ESRI study neatly sums up the argument: “Child-related leave policy has a key role to play in tackling this gender work gap.”

It can protect the employment relationship for mothers and assist them in returning to a job of the same level and pay, and can also allow for a stronger engagement of fathers in caring for children.

Essentially – if both parents have some time off around the birth, it means all the childcare doesn’t just fall on the mother.

This helps embed a culture where childcare responsibilities are shared more equally between men and women, rather than expectation that the mother handles the majority, while the father is working.

Shrunk the gender pay gap

This is also borne out by several studies. A UK think tank recently found that countries with more than six weeks of paid paternity leave shrunk their gender pay gap by 4%. This was likely due to a similar 4% reduction in the “labour force participation gap” – that is, the percentage of people working.

Another study carried out by a Swedish think tank also reported a positive impact, finding that each month that a father stayed on parental leave resulted in the mother’s earnings rising by 6.7%.

Put simply, these findings suggest higher paternity leave for fathers means women were more likely to go back to work after giving birth.

Going back to the likes of Sweden and Norway, which have much more generous parental leave policies. These countries also have higher rates of female participation in the workforce, although gender pay gaps still remain.

That does point to the fact that just improving parental leave for fathers is unlikely to be enough in isolation.

This was reflected in a study carried out by Canadian researchers. They found that fathers getting improved leave made a major impact on the mother’s earnings in the short-term.

But this impact was often not sustained, with the conclusion that there was a negligible impact on female earnings between three and 10 years after birth.

While it is not certain why this happens, the researchers said a likely reason is that “a few weeks of paternity leave may not be enough to change deeply ingrained societal norms about caregiving roles”.

Basically, while things improve in the short-term, women still end up taking on much more childcare after the improved paternity leave is used up.

However, results here are mixed, with some studies pointing to the fact that father’s attitudes to childcare actually do improve if they get longer parental leave. Given it likely takes years for gender attitudes to shift at a societal level, it’s possible that more time is needed to see the benefits of the policy bear fruit.

There’s also the fact that giving fathers improved leave is likely just a good policy in its own right, helping both fathers bond with their babies, and children to develop.

This tends to be strengthened when the father spends more time with their children when they’re young, and further reinforces this type of behaviour.

Net positive

Ultimately, while the findings of studies are not yet conclusive, they very much lean towards improved parental leave for fathers being a net positive.

With Ireland’s birth rate falling and the clear negative impact on women’s earnings from having children, it’s a policy which is worth seriously considering.

It’s likely more of a wider cultural shift will be needed before childcare responsibilities are more equally split between men and women.

But improved paternity leave seems to be a good start, while improving outcomes for both mothers and fathers.