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Research Programme on Equality and Discrimination

The ESRI has been engaged by the Equality Authority to develop a three year programme of research on equality and discrimination, running from 2006-2008. The research programme has two main objectives. Firstly, to develop knowledge of the comparative social situation of the groups who fall under the nine grounds identified in Irish equality legislation (gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller community). Secondly, to establish the extent and nature of discrimination experienced by these groups.

Dr Helen Russell and Dr. Fran McGinnity are the co-ordinators of this research programme.

With the publication of A Woman’s Place: Female Participation in the Irish Labour Market on 13 November 2009, research reports on six of the projects have been published. A final project on multiple inequalities based on analysis of the 2006 Census data is ongoing and will be completed this year.

1. Experiences of discrimination in Ireland: Analysis of the QNHS Equality Module. Published 26 May 2008.

2. Gender Inequalities in Time Use: The Division of Caring, Housework and Employment Among Women and Men in Ireland. Published 19 June 2008.

3. Immigrants at Work: Ethnicity and Nationality in the Irish Labour Market. Published 10 September 2008.

4. Discrimination in Recruitment: Evidence from a Field Experiment. Published 7 May 2009.

5. The Gender Wage Gap in Ireland: Evidence from the National Employment Survey 2003. Published 11 September 2009.

6. A Woman’s Place: Female Participation in the Irish Labour Market.
Published 13 November 2009.

7. Multiple Inequalities: An Analysis of Census 2006 Data. (Forthcoming).

Researchers: Dorothy Watson, Helen Russell, Emma Quinn and Pete Lunn.
This project, commissioned by the Equality Authority, will make use of 2006 Census data to examine inequalities in education, employment and housing among those whose circumstances would be covered under several of the nine grounds governed by equality legislation. The main question is whether there is evidence of cumulative disadvantage associated with the presence of more than one of the nine criteria. The project will analyse the Census 2006 data, including the 5% sample, and report to the Equality Authority by summer 2009.