Background to the Research

• The objectives of the study were to:
  • Describe the key labour market trends affecting Northern Ireland from 1971 to 1995, paying particular attention to gender differences in employment demand and labour force participation.
  • Build a forecasting model for projecting the gender composition of employment demand, by part-time/full-time status, industry sector, occupation, and sub-region. The forecasting model must also be capable of providing an indication of the impact on the gender composition of employment of alternative economic scenarios.

Key Findings

Key Trends: Labour Demand

• A sectoral shift in economic activity from production to services.
  
  
• The development of large government services sector.
  
  
• The shift to part-time employment.

Labour Demand: Key Trends by Gender

• The growth in female employment, both absolutely and relatively to male employment.
  
  
• The decline in male employment.
  
  
• The increasing dependence of females on part-time employment. As a result of the faster growth of part-time female employment, it is likely that the female share of total hours worked in the economy rose by less than the increase in the female share of the total number of jobs. To that extent, simple job counts will tend to overstate the magnitude of the female role in the production of goods and services and hence working women's share of the total regional income.
  
  
• Women are considerably less likely to be self-employed.

Labour Demand: Key Trends in Industry

• Female employment growth, both full-time and part-time, was faster than male employment growth across a broad spectrum of industries during the 1970s and the 1980s, both in full-time and part-time employment.
  
  
• The rising female share of total employment cannot be ascribed simply to the shift from manufacturing to services. The sectoral composition of employment growth accounted for only about 50% of the increase in the female share both in the 1970s and 1980s. The residual 50% is due to other unidentified factors.
  
  
• Females have become disproportionately represented in a number of sectors, especially government services. By 1992, women accounted for almost 70% of employment in education and over 80% of employment in the health services.
  
  
• The service industries in which females are disproportionately represented tend to be those in which part-time employment is especially concentrated and growing relatively quickly.

Labour Demands: Key Trends in Occupation

• The female working population in 1991 remained highly segmented, being disproportionately concentrated in a limited range of occupations.
  
  
• Females are over-represented in public services and under-represented in managerial occupations and among proprietors.

Sub-Regional Trends

• The bulk of Northern Ireland's 10% gain in employment over the period 1911-1991 occurred outside the Belfast travel-to-work area. All of the sub regions shared in the shift from manufacturing to services employment.
  
  
• As in Northern Ireland as a whole, part-time employment grew considerably faster than full-time employment in all sub-regions.
  
  
• The shift to services and the rapid growth of part-time employment contributed to faster growth of female employment than male employment in all sub-regions.

Labour Force Participation

• The key long-term trends in labour supply have been the increase in female labour force participation and the fall in the male participation rate.
  
  
• Female participation increased across all age cohorts from 1971-1991. The largest increases were for women aged between 25 and 45.
  
  
• Not withstanding the growth in participation by married women there are still large differences between activity rates for married and single women in all age cohorts.
  
  
• The significant factors constraining a woman's decision to participate in the labour market include marital status, family size, age of youngest child and the presence of an unemployed spouse.
  
  
• The significant factors enabling a woman to participate in the labour market include educational qualifications and the presence of an employed spouse.

Unemployment

• The increase in female labour force participation has been accompanied by a rising level of female unemployment.
  
  
• Analysis of Labour Force survey data suggests that female unemployment may be attributable to poor educational qualifications, the presence of an unemployed spouse and children under nine years of age.

The Labour Market in the 1990s: the Base Forecast

• The main features of the outlook for the Northern Ireland labour market to the year 2000 are:
  • Continued growth in female employment and decline in male employment.
  • The female share of the labour market outcomes means that the female share of employment is set to rise further by 2000.
  • Female part-time employment is projected to continue to expand more rapidly than all other employment.
• The forecasts for part-time employment reflect a continuing concentration of females in a relatively narrow set of industries. Further, the female share of total hours worked is likely to grow less quickly than the female share of jobs.
  
  
• Employment growth is projected to be less rapid than in the 1980s, leading to sluggish growth in female participation and continued decline in male activity rates. Unemployment rates are expected to remain high throughout the decade.

Alternative Scenarios in the 1990s: Public Sector Cuts and Employment by Gender

• The implications of public sector cuts for the trend in the female share of employment was examined by performing four simulations around the baseline forecast, based on 10% cuts in employment and spending in: (a) all government departments and programmes; (b) education; (c) health; and (d) public administration.
  
  
• The results indicate that female employment is more vulnerable to public expenditure cuts than male employment. This is because of the high female representation in publicly provided services such as education and health.
  
  
• There are large differences between males and females in the employment effects of cuts in either health or education.
  
  
• Cuts in public administration, applied evenly across the civil service, local authorities, and other components of the administrative sector, would not result in any marked gender differences in employment effects.

Alternative Scenarios for the 1990s: The Prospects for Manufacturing Demand and Employment by Gender

• Male employment is most vulnerable to conditions in external markets for Northern Ireland's manufacturing industries. This is due to the predominance of males in manufacturing employment.
  
  
• The indirect effects of manufacturing employment changes tend to be equally distributed between males and females. This arises because females are well represented in demand-sensitive private sector industries.
  
  
• Public sector employment, where females comprise over 60% of employment, is unaffected by upturns or downturns in manufacturing demand. This tends to protect a large proportion of female employment from cyclical downturns in external markets for manufacturing.
  
  
• Overall, when manufacturing declines, the female share of employment increases. When manufacturing employment expands more rapidly than total employment, the female share tends to fall.