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THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REVIEW
1.1 Changing Employment Patterns in Ireland
Does Irish evidence on paid work suggest that we are overworked? The
economic boom that Ireland has been experiencing since the mid-1990s has led
to a rapid increase in employment (O’Connell and Russell, 2007). This rise in
employment has been particularly dramatic for women. The proportion of
women in paid employment increased from 38 per cent to 56 per cent over the
period 1993 to 2004. The proportion of men in paid employment also increased,
but at a more modest rate, rising from 64 per cent in 1993 to 76 per cent in
2004. The unemployment rate fell from 16 per cent in 1993 to 4.4 per cent in
2004. While these changes have occurred very rapidly, the overall rate of
employment in Ireland is not exceptional in European terms, though
unemployment is lower than the EU average.
While there has been an increase in the number of people in employment
the average number of hours worked per week has been declining gradually.
Between 1994 and 2004 average hours of work fell from 45.1 hours among men
and 34.7 hours among women to 41.2 hours and 32.3 hours respectively. These
changes are part of a longer-term downward trend in working hours.1 A
similar decline has occurred in the proportion of workers recording very long
working hours (O’Connell and Russell, 2007).
There has also been considerable change in the distribution of employment
across households (Russell et al., 2004). Between 1994 and 2000, among
working age households, the proportion of workless households (that is,
those with no adults in paid employment) declined from 22 per cent to 14 per
cent. The share of ‘work-rich’ households in which all adults are employed
grew from 35 per cent to 49 per cent. This trend was evident across different
types of households but the changes were particularly marked for households
with dependent children.
The increased rate of work-rich households is also reflected in couples’
employment status. Among couples there has been a significant increase in
the proportion of dual-earners between 1994 and 2000. By the end of this
period dual-earnership had become more common than the traditional male
breadwinner/female homemaker arrangement among working age couples see
Table 1.
1 CSO Labour Force Survey and Quarterly National Household Survey. Self-reported ‘usual hours’
per week. Estimates from such self-report questions vary from those produced by time-use
surveys. Respondents are found to over-report long hours of work in self-reported hours (Robinson
and Bostrom, 1994; Gershuny, 2000).