`The Differences between Women are more Marginal'... Catholic and Protestant Women in the Northern Ireland Labour Market

Despite the high degree of interest in inequality between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, public policy and academic debates alike have focused largely on men's employment and unemployment. The paper suggests a number of reasons for this and analyses the nature of gender segregation in the Northern Ireland labour market, identifying the differences in the employment position of Catholic and Protestant women. Clear contrasts in the labour market position of the two sets of women with respect to unemployment are also demonstrated. The paper makes reference to certain alternatives to conventional measures of participation and underlines the importance of adjusting industrial and occupational categories so as better to reveal the patterns of women's employment. In Britain as a whole, there is increasing interest in a reconceptualisation of women's employment in order to acknowledge and to integrate more fully the specific experience of diverse groups. It is equally important for Northern Ireland, where debates about the changing labour market can all too easily proceed without reference to women at all.