Ireland’s gender pay gap is lower than the European average, according to new EU figures. 
According to the report from Eurostat, published on Monday, men on average earn 13.9pc more than women here, compared to the EU average of 16.2pc.
The figures are from 2010, and show that a number of other European countries have far higher gaps between the average amount earned by men and women.
For example, the gap in the UK is 19.5pc, in Austria it is 24pc and in Estonia it is 27pc. Germany has a gender pay gap of 22pc. Slovenia has the lowest pay gap in the EU, at 2.3pc.
Sweden, usually touted as a model of gender equity, and which provides universal childcare, has a gender pay gap of 15.4, which is also higher than ours.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) repeatedly show that a major driver of the gender pay gap is the fact that more women than men choose to work part-time.
CSO data from 2010 showed that 34,600 men worked less than 20 hours per week compared with 123,500 women.
A total of 380,700 men worked 40 hours or more per week compared with 131,700 women.
The percentage of married men working full-time in 2010 is 41 percent and the equivalent figure for married women is 12.9 percent.
And Quarterly Household Survey data show that this disparity is a result of women’s choices.
Figures from 2011 show that 73pc of part-time working women say they are not underemployed as against only 27pc of women in part-time work who say they are “underemployed”.
This confirms research by academics such as Dr Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics who says that most women choose a different work/life balance compared with most men.
The CSO also found that when the gender pay gap is adjusted for the number of women in part-time jobs it drops to just 10 percent.
The gender pay gap is also a result of the fact that fewer women than men wish to rise to the top of the career ladder and also that they are more likely to be found in the less-well paid ‘caring’ occupations.
Meanwhile, a poll carried out earlier this year showed that nearly half of Irish women feel that society does not value women who work in the home equally with women who do paid work.
The poll, carried out by Ipsos/MORI on behalf of the Irish Times, found that 43pc of women felt that Irish society valued women who work outside the home more than homemakers.
The survey asked: “Which does Irish society value more: women who work in the home or women who work outside of the home?”
The poll showed that 45pc of women said they were valued equally; only nine percent said that women in the home were valued more. Two percent said they didn’t know.
Fifty four percent of men said that both types of work were valued equally, with 28pc saying that women who worked outside the home were valued more. Only 14pc said that women who worked in the home were valued more.
