A Dublin for Families

1
A Dublin for Families?

• Dr Gráinne Collins
• Employment Research Centre
• Trinity College Dublin

2
To answer the question

• Need to know how the following interact
• Work organization change
• Demographic and family structure change
• Spatial changes (where do people live and work
  and how do they move between spaces)
• Often been a concentration on only one aspect and
  not on interaction

3
Research

• No time-use statistics for Ireland
• To answer the question is Dublin family
  Friendly? we have to use a patchwork of
  different research
• Census
• Surveys of families
• Equality audits and surveys of companies

4
Men and their Families (1)

• Work by Margret Fine Davies (TCD) shows that
  Dublin fathers spend a lot of hours away from
  their families in comparison to other European
  fathers.
• Why?
• Commute working hourslong hours away from
  children
• Women solved the problem by working closer to
  home
• Small sample size

5
Men and their Families (2)

• An equality audit by myself and Josephine Browne
  shows that
• younger fathers are more likely to have working
  partners than their older counterparts.  This
  means that they are less geographically or
  temporarily flexible as men once were and are
  time-stressed

6
Gender Pay Gap

• Women continue to earn less than men because
• Women and men are in different sectors
• Women are less likely to do overtime and more
  likely to take advantage of family flexible
  working (Indecon, 2002)

7
Work in the New Economy

• Research by Lidia Greco (TCD)
• ICT sector is gendered (women find it hard to
  fit in, organisations are time-greedy,
  project work is bulimic )
• And un-family friendly (men and women say they
  will only work in IT until they have children).
• also similar findings by Pascal Preston at DCU

8
Gentrification and suburbanisation

• Certain areas of the city have experienced a
  renaissance
• Analysis of the census shows that once education
  poor areas now have lots of people with degrees
• But these educated people dont have children
• Children are in families that dont have degrees

9
From patchwork to consistent story

• Educated couples move to the suburbs when they
  have children
• Women down shift (less stressful job closer to
  home, maybe part-time)
• Men continue to commute
• This results in
• Women losing income
• Men losing time with their children
• Poor areas losing educated residents
• The economy losing vital resources

10
Is Dublin family-friendly?

• Spatial changes have tackled many of the old
  inequalities
• However they have not caught up with the new work
  organisational changes and the new families

11
The challenge for City-Regions

• The new challenge is not just to be women
  friendly but to be also parent and family
  friendly. 
• First step is recognising families and work has
  changed
• Build family homes close to work
• Locate work close to families
• Reduce commuting times