Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this very important issue. I am dealing with this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, who cannot be here. The Minister of State has delegated responsibility for the Central Statistics Office arising from the Statistics (Delegation of Ministerial Functions) Order 2018.

The matter in question relates specifically to the available CSO statistics with regard to the gender breakdown of those employed in business by business size. Policy matters relating to business are a matter for the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation and policy matters relating to gender equality are a matter for the Minister for Justice and Equality. Any policy issues arising should, therefore, be raised with the appropriate Minister.

Unfortunately, the exact information requested by Senator Bacik is not available from the Central Statistics Office. I am informed that the CSO's official source of statistics regarding size of enterprise is sourced from its business demography data but these statistics, which are based on administrative data supplied by the Revenue Commissioners, do not include information on the gender of the persons engaged in these enterprises. In addition, this business demography data only include the business economy and, therefore, exclude sectors such as public administration and defence, including compulsory social insurance, education, human health and social work activities and some other services sectors.

Taking these factors into account, it can be noted that in 2016, this source showed that the total number of persons engaged in active small enterprises, namely, those with fewer than 50 persons engaged, was 720,401. The number of persons engaged in active medium enterprises, namely, between 50 and 249 persons engaged, was 290,604. The number of persons engaged in active large enterprises, namely, 250 and more persons engaged, was 467,231. Clearly, therefore, a large number of people work in small enterprises. It should be noted that these totals include the business economy only and cannot be further disaggregated by gender.

An additional source of relevant information from the CSO is the labour force survey, LFS, which provides statistics broken down by gender. The purpose of this survey is the production of quarterly labour force estimates and information is collected continuously throughout the year from households surveyed each week and each quarter. The LFS is the official source of labour market statistics for Ireland. The primary classification used for the LFS results is the International Labour Office, ILO, labour force classification. The ILO classification distinguishes three main subgroups of the population aged 15 or over, namely, persons in employment, persons who are unemployed and inactive population. Persons in employment are defined as those who worked in the week before the survey for one hour or more for payment or profit, including work on the family farm or business, and all persons who had a job but were not at work because of illness, holidays, etc., in the week. The LFS includes a number of detailed questions asked of those respondents who have been classified as being in employment. One of these questions asks respondents for their estimate of the total number of persons who work in their place of employment. However, as this question is reported by the respondent and refers to the number of employees at the local place of employment of the respondent, it does not directly correspond to the business demography data to which I referred. However, the LFS include information on the gender of the respondent and incorporates all sectors of the economy.

The most recent figures available from the labour force survey are for quarter 2 of 2018. These indicative figures show that in the second quarter, the split by gender for the number of persons working in a local place of employment with between one and 49 persons was 49.7% male and 50.3% female. The split by gender for those working in a place of employment with between 50 and 249 persons was 51.6% male and 48.4% female. These are interesting figures. Finally, the split by gender for those working in a place of employment with 250 or more persons was 58.7% male and 41.3% female. In addition, it can be noted that no answer regarding the number of persons at a place of employment was given by 27,000 males, a figure that represented 2.2% of all males in employment, and no answer was given by 19,300 females, a figure that represented 1.9% of all females in employment.

The number of males classified as self-employed with no employees was 172,700, while the number of females classified as self-employed with no employees was 54,200. I am also informed that a series of detailed LFS employment statistics showing additional data on the number of persons in employment at the respondents' place of work and also offering various additional classifications of persons are due for publication on the CSO website at 11 a.m. tomorrow.

As I mentioned, any matters of policy arising from these figures should be raised with the relevant Minister. It is important to state, however, that gender equality is a significant priority for the Government. The programme for Government includes a number of measures designed to promote and increase gender equality and significant progress has been made on this matter.