Latest updates from the UK and across the globe as Ireland announces vote to remove constitutional reference to women’s place being in the home
Ireland is to hold a referendum to establish gender equality and to remove a constitutional reference to a woman’s place being in the home.
The government announcement – timed to coincide with International Women’s Day – said the referendum in November will seek to amend articles 40 and 41 of the 1937 constitution, including this reference: “By her life within the home, woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.”
According to data from the Office for National Statistics, based on the Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings (ASHE), the gender pay gap for full-time employees was 8.3% in 2022, up from 7.7% in 2021. Among all employees, the gender pay gap is 14.9%.
But Gosling said the gap for mothers was considerably larger than the one represented by the official gender pay gap. By her calculations, the hourly wages of mothers is 72% of the hourly wage of fathers, which reflects the fact that working mums are stalled in their career path, and less likely to go into the highest-paid roles.
Barriers to career progression for mothers with some post-school education have hardly shifted. The gap in pay between mothers and fathers looks very similar now as it did in the late 1970s. The story for Gen-Xers is the same for boomers and the millennials.
