IHREC publishes report ‘Who Experiences Discrimination in Ireland?’

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) in conjunction with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ERSI) have produced the report ‘Who experiences Discrimination in Ireland?’ as the first in a series of research prepared as part of the Commission’s Research Programme on Human Rights and Equality.

The report draws on data collected for the equality module of the 2014 Quarterly National Household Survey carried out by the Central Statistics Office and compares the data to findings in 2004 and 2010. The survey involved 15,000 participants across Ireland. Each respondent was asked if they experienced discrimination in either the workplace, while seeking work or when availing of public or private services in the last two years. In 2014, 12 per cent of the population in Ireland reported experiencing some form of discrimination in the previous two years with rates highest in relation to seeking work (7 per cent), followed by the workplace (5 per cent), private services (5 per cent), and public services (3 per cent).

A brief summary of some of the notable findings of the report are below.

• Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience discrimination at work, with issues of pay and promotion frequently raised, though there are no gender differences in other areas.
• The 45-64-year-old group is more likely to experience discrimination seeking work than younger workers but in private services older adults, especially those over 65, are much less likely to experience discrimination.
• Compared to White Irish respondents, Black respondents are three times more likely to experience discrimination in the workplace and in access to public services, and over four times more likely to experience discrimination in access to private services. White non-Irish do not differ from White Irish respondents in reported discrimination in any domain; the workplace, seeking work, or in relation to public services.
• Asian respondents report more discrimination than White Irish in private services.
• Compared to Catholics, members of minority religions report somewhat higher discrimination rates in the workplace and in public and private services
• Never-married lone parents reported to be more likely to experience discrimination public and private services than single childless adults.
• Irish Travellers reported very high rates of discrimination in seeking work, where they were ten times more likely than White Irish respondents to experience discrimination, and exceptionally high rates of discrimination in access to private services where they were over 22 times more likely to experience discrimination.
• Persons with Disabilities are more than twice as likely as those without a disability to experience discrimination in all areas – at work, in recruitment and in accessing public and private services.

The study compares the latest 2014 data to those from identical surveys conducted in 2004 and 2010, and has found that while overall reported discrimination has remained stable, there have been significant diverging trends which include:

• Discrimination experienced by people while seeking work has risen significantly from 5.8% in 2004 and 5.9% in 2010 to 7.4% in 2014.
• Discrimination in relation to the provision of private services has decreased significantly from 6.8% in 2004 to 4.7% in 2014. The biggest fall was in experience of financial institutions, though there was no fall in housing discrimination.
• Persons with disabilities reported a much higher experience of workplace discrimination in 2004 compared to those without a disability; this gap narrowed during the recession in 2010 but then rose again in 2014 as recovery began.

Click here for the full report.