DAISIE - Country report: Ireland

This paper presents a discussion of the gender and health impacts of extended working life policies in Ireland. It gives an overview of gendered working patterns in Ireland, focusing particularly on older workers and giving an outline of some of the historical policies that affected women earlier in their working lives, adopting a lifecourse approach in order to account for gender pension and unemployment inequalities. This is followed by an overview of the pension system in Ireland and of gendered patterns and level of coverage. This is followed by a discussion of the policies that have been introduced to extend working life and related pension reforms including health related employment measures and family friendly policies and the gendered division of care labour. There is a brief synopsis of the media debate in Ireland on extended working life policies and pension reforms particularly those related to gender. There is a discussion of the policy and academic literature in gender and extended working life including that on health and precarious employment.