Background to the Research

• The Women's Health Issue Group was established in 1991 as one of the five issue groups of Belfast Healthy Cities. The group is made up of representatives from the statutory, voluntary and community sector. This report forms one part of a tripartite of work being carried out by the group and was funded from the Peace & Reconciliation Programme under the auspices of the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust.
  

Research Approach

• The report offers a comprehensive picture of the health of women in Belfast and draws on data concerning women's health gathered by a variety of agencies within Belfast and on NI statistics compiled by various government bodies.
  

Main Findings

Demographic Changes

• Between 1971 and 1991 the population of Belfast declined from 416,700 to 279,230, during the same period the number of single parent households almost doubled. In 1997 it was estimated that there were 16,072 lone parent families in the Belfast City Council area, the majority of which are headed by women.
• Births in Belfast fell by 10.9% between 1991/3 and 1994/6, from 5,327 in 1991 to 4,595 in 1996 and in general the number of births in the city is decreasing every year.

Socio-economic profile of women in Belfast

• Between 1991 and 1995 male and female full-time employment fell, part-time employment rose and the proportion of all jobs held by women also increased. In NI in 1995, 285,240 males were in employment and 287,920 females.
• Women's pay is consistently around three quarters of that of men. The introduction of the minimum wage of £3.60 affected 20,000 people in NI, 60% of whom were women.
• Total unemployment in NI fell for both men and women by 35.5% between 1991 and 1997 and for Belfast total unemployment fell by 36.6% from 23,815 to 125,108 during the same period.

Child care

• In 1996/7 a total of 94 childcare organisations were registered with NIPPA in the Belfast area, alongside this a number of organisation exist which are not registered with NIPPA. In Belfast City alone over 300 child minders are members of the Northern Ireland Child Minders Association.

Education and Training

• In 1996/7, of the total number of young people leaving school at 16 years in Belfast City Council Area, 57.1% were female and 42.9% were male. In relation to the females, 23.7% had 5+ GCSE's Grade A-C; 26.8% 1-4 Grade A-C, however, 37% had grades D-G and 12.4% had no GCSE's.
• A substantial number of women left school with no formal qualification and find they lack the necessary skills and training for employment. A variety of agencies in Belfast offer help to women in this area, these include the Workers Education Association, the Belfast Women's Training Services and the Training for Women Network.

Health

• Of the 29,355 births in Belfast between 1990-1996, 156 were stillbirths, 249 died within the first week of life (a rate of 8.5 per 1,000 of all births) and 191 died within the first year of life (a rate of 6.5 per 1,000). The proportion of low birth weight babies (less than 5lb 5oz) is higher in Belfast city (7.3%) than in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board area average (6.4%), with the West and the East of the city recording the highest rates, 8.9% and 8% respectively.
• The total number of mothers smoking in Belfast in 1995-97 was 9039 and, of these, 36.1% smoked during pregnancy, with the highest rates of smoking during pregnancy recorded in the West and North of the City.
• Of the 1,055 children born in Belfast between June and August 1997, 68.1% were bottle fed (718) and only 26.7% (282) were breast fed on discharge from hospital.
• Of the 4,575 births to Belfast residents between 1996/7, 412 (9%) were to mothers aged less than 20 years and 52 (1.1%) to mothers aged 16 or younger. More than 70% of teenage births in Belfast occurred within the North and West sectors of the city.
• Family planning services are accessed through General Practitioners and 15 Family Planning Clinics alongside the Brooks Advisory Centre, during 1996/7 33,943 people attended Family Planning Clinics.
• In Belfast as in the rest of NI the biggest cause of premature death is from Ischaemic Heart Disease (angina, heart attack). However, women in Belfast are 14% more likely to die prematurely from Ischaemic heart disease than women in the rest of NI and this is particularly true for women in both the North and West of the city.
• Whilst the extent of domestic violence is severely under-reported, in 1996/7 in Belfast 1,472 calls for advice and information were received by Women's Aid. In the same year 425 women and 683 children were in Women's Aid refuges in Belfast; at the same time 223 women and 489 children were unable to be placed in refuges.