Irish women are 'working for free' for the rest of the year, according to the charity behind the WorkEqual campaign.

According to Dress for Success Dublin, Sunday marked 'Equal Pay Day' in Ireland: the day on which women effectively stop earning, relative to men, because of the gender pay gap.

The charity launched its fourth annual #WorkEqual campaign, with the aim of highlighting issues around gender equality in the workplace.

Founder Sonya Lennon said: "We have a gender pay gap in Ireland of 13.9%.

"If you shave 13.9% off the end of the year, you land on [Sunday's] date.

"So Equal Pay Day is a symbolic day to highlight the still existing pay gap between women and men."

She added: "We acknowledge that the pay gap is a symptom of the wider gender opportunity gap and cultural and structural challenges that women face in the workplace.

"While progress is being made, change is happening slowly, and more needs to be done to challenge societal and political attitudes.

"Lack of affordable childcare, gender stereotyping, inflexible work options, and poor take-up of parental leave are all feeding into the persistent inequalities between women and men."

The centrepiece of this year's campaign will be a thought leadership conference, taking place in Dublin's Marker Hotel on Wednesday.

The line-up includes Tatjana Latinovic, chair of the Icelandic Women's Rights Association, the organisation that pioneered the 'women's strike' movement in the 1970s; and British journalist and author Christine Armstrong, whose book, The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have a Career and Stay Sane(ish), was a finalist in the 2019 Business Book of the Year Awards.

Source: EIGE

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) publishes a Gender Equality Index to measure the progress of gender equality in all EU member states.

According to the 2019 Index, Ireland scores 71.3 out of 100 points, placing it above the EU average.

While Ireland has improved its index scores since 2005, gender inequalities are most pronounced in the domain of power (53.4 points), reflecting the low levels of political and board representation of women in Ireland.

The index also shows that women's mean monthly earnings are €2,808 in Ireland, compared to €3,423 for men.

While the full-time equivalent employment rate for women is 43.9%, compared to 60% for men.