Dr. Ursula Barry:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it. I wish good health to Ivana that she will soon be back in place.

The theme for my opening statement is about putting care at the centre of Irish society and what that would involve.

The care economy is central to every discussion on gender equality in Ireland. This is primarily because there is a significant care penalty, mainly affecting women, with negative effects on women's level of unpaid work, income from paid work, career development and entitlements to social protection.

Everyone, at different stages of life, cares for others or has care needs provided by others. Care is part of all our lives at some point. Care is essential work encompassing the social infrastructure on which our societies are built. It includes looking after the physical, social, psychological, emotional, and developmental needs of one person or more. It is also true to say that care and the economy are intertwined and care is increasingly recognised as a significant economic issue. In practice, economic relations influence the quantity and quality of care provided in society and the care systems through which it is organised but the care economy is not valued, or is seriously and systematically undervalued, both on our island and also at a global level.

Demographic change, economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic have put care more centrally on the current policy agenda. Unfortunately, it is also quick to fall off the agenda. For example, the EU Covid-19 recovery plan, which was allocated a significant amount of funding in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, has allocated 30% of its expenditure to the digital economy, a further 30% of expenditure is allocated to the green economy but there is no ring-fenced allocation to the care economy. Ireland's submission on the recovery plan pays scant attention to care.

Applying a gender equality perspective on the economy and society means placing the care economy at its centre. When that happens mainstream assumptions about economic activity and economic well-being are challenged. There are key assumptions which are reflected in the United Nations system of measuring economic activity that all of countries adhere to and that determine how economic activity is measured and not measured, both in Ireland and internationally.

Under this global system, the measurement of GNP and GDP is based on market economic activity, that is, activity that passes through the market and, therefore, carries a price. This model of economic activity does not recognise interdependence, through which much of our economic activity is organised. It also casts dependency in a negative light.

Within mainstream economics, "value" is used to refer to anything that has a price in the marketplace. In this mainstream economic model, many activities are not counted. These are the unpaid, frequently hidden and uncounted care, community and volunteering activities that bind our society together. This means that the majority of women's economic activity is not counted in the global system, as most of this unpaid activity is care work, and that a significant amount of the economic activity that women do is hidden, invisible, unmeasured and devalued in economic data. According to the International Labour Organization, at a global level, three out of four hours of unpaid, unmeasured activities are carried out by women. As a consequence, economic statistics used to inform policymaking and policy priorities are narrow and gendered because only those activities that are counted are fully taken into account when policy priorities are determined. This means that women's economic activity is marginalised and not prioritised in the system.

What does this have to do with applying a gender equality lens to the economy? It has to do with understanding the implications for women in particular, who carry out the vast majority of these unpaid and undervalued activities. When we look at Ireland, we see a starkly gendered care system: 98% of full-time carers are women; Ireland has the third highest level of unpaid work in the EU; and, on average, Irish adults spend more than 30 hours per week on unpaid care provision and housework. Research by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, by Dr. Helen Russell has revealed that women spend double the amount of time on caring than men - 10.6 hours for men and 21.3 hours for women - per week. Women do nearly three times as much housework as men, reporting an average of 20 hours per week while men report an average of seven hours per week. This is a highly gendered system.

Linked to this is the gendered care penalty. The care penalty imposed on women in Ireland is substantial. Women's lower earnings in employment, access to care breaks and shorter working lives generate a series of complex issues that shape their economic lives: economic dependence; lower lifetime earnings; lower pension entitlements and other social protections; greater poverty as lone parents and in old age; limited access to labour market schemes; a narrower range of employment and educational opportunities; little recognition of the value of economic activity; less control of time, particularly leisure time; and restricted opportunities for political and cultural participation.

Rigid gender roles are failing men also. While men in general may benefit from a patriarchal dividend, if we might call it that, based on the unequal division of caring, rigid gender roles are for many men linked to imposed disengagement and marginalisation from care and caring. There is evidence that some men are creating the opportunities for greater involvement and many more would like the opportunity. Within the wider policy system, though, there is a definite low priority attached to supporting men within our care economy. Without more gender equality in the care economy, gender equality at a societal level will not be achieved in Ireland or globally.