1. Managing Diversity
A Position Paper for the TRED Equal Project
Drafted by
Dr Alan Bruce
October 2002

2. 1. Conceptual Background: US origins
Managing Diversity is one of the key aspects of management and personnel practice to
emerge from the profound socio-economic changes of the past thirty years. Beginning
with the changes promulgated by the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) in the United
States, American industry began to experience the impact of new categories of workers
from traditionally excluded sectors as well as from diverse ethnic and religious
backgrounds. The entry of significant numbers of women workers and, later, those with
disabilities also brought about a range of challenges to work practices and structures that
had been traditionally based on a static, white male version of ‘normality’.
The nature of the modern labour market reflects the wider social environment in terms of
increased diversity occasioned by migration, demographic change and the changing
nature of work due to technological advance. The labour market also reflects the changes
in work practice that have been conditioned, on the one hand, by the process of
globalization and, on the other hand, by the enactment of equality-based legislation in
various jurisdictions.
Equal status for all, and particularly for those who have been traditionally excluded by
reason of popular prejudice or discrimination, poses a set of challenges for social
institutions apart from the labour market. This has become particularly noticeable in the
European context where there is an extensive tradition of labour-related legislation and,
with the added impact of the European Union, a strong emphasis on common standards to
affirm rights and regulate workforce conditions.
Whether European or American, the management of diversity in the labour market
context has a number of shared concerns. These can be summarized as:
• Best practice in the human resources development function
• Maximisation of the potential of new and existing labour market participant
categories
• Reduction of social and economic cost in dealing with diverse labour groups
• Conformity to national or transnational legislative requirements
• Tapping into the creativity latent in diverse and non-standard work groups and
perspectives
• Innovative responses to inclusion, design and differentiated market sectors.
The US origins of the concept of managing diversity focus straightforwardly on the
human resource development aspect of the potential (and threat) of a diverse workforce.
In the Workforce 2000 report on labour market projections (Hudson Institute 1987) it is
accepted that the American workforce will be re-shaped by issues around gender, race,
ethnicity, national origin and age. It is accepted that managing diversity is a key priority
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3. not because corporations are becoming kinder or gentler but because they want to survive
(Edwards 1991).
The imperative to create and sustain a diversity approach is, in this context, minimalist
and reactive. It is necessary to recruit, train and promote diverse new groups because this
will adapt best to externally changing sociological realities and to changing market
preferences. The US conceptual framework relies heavily on the notions of:
1. affirmative action
2. equal opportunity
3. cultural diversity.
This is grounded less on an appreciation of the changing nature of the wider society than
on the changing nature of the market and market requirements. Integration, in this sense,
is valued as it produces more contented, potential consumers with enhanced spending
power.
However one-dimensional from a European perspective, the pioneering work of US
scholars and practitioners in the area of managing diversity has produced important new
concepts and tools for managers and organizations. These tools are to design, implement
and evaluate personnel, training and strategic planning processes that maximize potential
and contribution for all stakeholders in workplace organizations. There also is a
recognition, even in the US context, that discrimination and prejudice are still powerfully
entrenched in traditional sectors. Evidence shows that despite decades of civil rights
legislation, qualified minorities and women are routinely passed over for promotion in
favour of less qualified white males (McCoy 1994).
Managing diversity is classically described in contrast to affirmative action and valuing
difference (Gardenswartz and Rowe 1993).
In this paradigm, affirmative action refers to legally mandated written plans and
statistical goals for the recruitment, training and promotion of specific under-utilized
groups. This quantitative, compliance-driven approach is remedial in that it attempts to
right past wrongs. Its focus is to assimilate underrepresented people into the organization.
Its key characteristics are:
• quantitative
• legally driven
• remedial
• assimilation model
• opens doors
• resistance due to perceived limits to autonomy and fears of reverse discrimination.
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4. Valuing difference develops around moral and ethical imperatives to recognize and
appreciate culturally diverse people in the labour market or organization. This pluralist
approach does not seek assimilation. The focus is on changing employee perceptions and
attitudes. Its key characteristics are:
• qualitative
• ethically driven
• idealistic
• diversity model
• opens attitudes, minds and culture
• resistance due to fear of change or discomfort with difference.
Finally, in distinction to the other models, we have managing diversity. This emphasizes
managerial skills and policies needed to optimise each employee’s contribution to the
overall organizational goals. Initiatives are undertaken to enhance organizational morale,
productivity and benefits. Following the recruitment of minorities and the change in
employee consciousness, appropriate policies, procedures and managerial interventions
are needed to operationalise a culturally diverse workplace. The key characteristics of
managing diversity from this perspective are:
• behavioural
• strategically driven
• pragmatic
• synergy model
• opens the system
• resistance arises from denial of demographic realities and the need for alternative
approaches as well as from the difficulty of learning new skills and altering existing
systems.
In the United States, it has been recognized for some time that the continuation of
economic competitiveness depends upon the reversal of the trend towards a low-skill,
high-wage workforce. Skills deficiencies in the workplace result in waste, lost
productivity, poor quality and reduced competitiveness among other things. Correct use
of a culturally diverse workforce implies therefore not wasting potential and existing
talent through use of irrelevant criteria such as race, gender, religion or national origin.
The persistence of discrimination and prejudice in industrial practice was recognized in
the results of the Glass Ceiling Initiative launched by the Department of Labour
(Dominguez 1994). This found:
• the critical mass of minorities and women were employed well below a certain level
(the “glass ceiling”) in all categories of employment
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5. • there was a national lack of corporate strategies to achieve equal employment
opportunity practice – equal access and opportunity were perceived as a responsibility
of the Human Resources section rather than a collective corporate responsibility
• minorities and women were not employed in line positions which led to executive
career tracks or greater rewards
• minorities and women had less access to career development, training, certification
and promotional posts of responsibility
• recruitment practices significantly impeded promotional management prospects for
minorities and women
• inadequate provisions were made in companies to monitor discriminatory practices
and procedures.
Promoting a diversity culture has therefore been advocated in the United States as a key
component to growth and competitiveness. It is also one of the few areas in US
management practice where specific awareness of international trade dimensions and
comparative best practice are acknowledged. The international context of diversity
management relates directly to the process of globalization – a concept that is frequently
under-represented in the American literature. The priority of implementing and measuring
progress towards a diverse workforce has been strongly advocated by some authors
(Henderson 1994).
Henderson feels the diversity climate of an organization can be measured by:
1. structure
2. responsibility
3. risk
4. standards
5. reward
6. support
7. conflict
8. warmth
9. identity.
Best American practice in the field of managing diversity is concentrating on what
Thomas has referred to as “Third Paradigm” strategies (Thomas and Ely, 2001). These
focus on the overarching theme of integration. Assimilation is seen to promote sameness.
Differentiation goes too far in the other direction. The third model, however, promotes
equal opportunity. It recognizes difference and then uses it as a tool to develop a learning
organization.
This model posits eight preconditions to use identity-group differences in the service of
organizational growth, learning and renewal. These are:
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6. 1. Leadership structures must understand that a diverse workforce will embody different
perspectives and approaches to work and must truly value variety of opinion and
insight.
2. Management must recognize both the learning opportunities and challenges that
expression of different perspectives presents for an organization.
3. The organizational culture must create an expectation of high standards of
performance from everyone.
4. The organizational culture must stimulate personal development.
5. The organizational culture must encourage openness.
6. The culture must make workers feel valued.
7. The organization must have a well-articulated and widely understood mission.
8. The organization must have a relatively egalitarian, non-bureaucratic structure.
2. Changing perspectives: the European dimension
Management of diversity in a European context does take into account, like the US
model, the need for improved organizational cultures and human resource strategies.
However, it diverges significantly from the US perspective in situating its analysis in an
examination of the changing nature of work itself and the qualitatively and quantitatively
greater role assigned to State intervention. Most European societies take it as a norm, in
addition, that the existence of parallel State welfare supports and mechanisms collaborate
with and enhance labour market policies and directions and do not contradict or inhibit
them.
The range of social and economic challenges facing European industry in an era of
change and global competitiveness has been fundamentally the same as the American.
But Europe emerges from a specific historic matrix where the characteristics of social and
racial difference have had a profound resonance of political change, threat and instability.
All this occurs in a context where the majority of European States are moving towards
greater collaboration and synthesis of policy directions in the emergence of structures
under the aegis of the European Union.
As a management technique, managing diversity has been pioneered by the subsidiaries
of US firms in Europe (eg. Intel, Hewett Packard, Apple). It has also been indigenously
developed in contexts where structures need to respond to:
• increasing demographic complexity
• inward migration
• the massive return of women to the labour market
• cultural complexity resulting from increasingly freer movement of labour within the
European Union.
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7. It has gained ground in socio-economic environments where management has had to
respond to change and also to the increasing impact of equality driven legislation and
recognition of rights under the European Social Charter.
As we will see, this has had a particular impact in Ireland. Here the fastest growing
economy in Europe has had to contend with rapidly evolving labour market conditions
and expectations. The pace of change has been mirrored by some of the most extensive
equality driven legislation and monitoring structures in Europe. In addition, the Irish
concept of equality has diverged dramatically from the original European one – which
focused primarily on gender – to embrace a wide range of other social categories.
The underlying nature of labour relations is both hierarchic and collective. A business is
conceived as a community of workers with different trades contributing to a single
economic activity under the supervision of a single employer. This concept corresponds
to what classic industrial relations theorists have termed the ‘Fordist’ model. This relates
to a large industrial business engaging in mass production based on:
• a narrow specialization of jobs and competencies
• pyramidal management
• hierarchical structure of labour
• separation between product design and manufacture.
This model has been largely dominant throughout Europe (Ferrara 1998) in various
different forms. The core feature of this model is the crucial importance of standard full-
time non-temporary wage contracts, centring around the trade off between high levels of
subordination and disciplinary control on the part of the employer - and high levels of
stability and welfare/insurance compensations and guarantees on the part of the
employee.
The key report on the future of work and employment in Europe, the Supiot Report
(Supiot 2001) recognizes that this pattern is changing rapidly and dramatically. It locates
this change in four areas:
1. Rising level of employee skills and qualifications and consequent increase in
employee autonomy
2. Increasing pressure of competition on more open markets
3. Evolution of information and communications technologies
4. Entry of married women into the labour force and profound alteration of traditional
family and demographic patterns.
Because of the many kinds of national employment environments and national labour law
traditions, no single common pattern of work relationships has emerged. Of the broad
trends that have been identified the following emerge:
• Trends in self-employment as opposed to waged employment
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8. • Change in traditional power relations in industry
• Outsourcing and temporary work.
The notion of diversity in the labour force, and the consequent need for changing
enterprises to manage and develop diversity approaches, is located in Europe in the
intersection between institutional reform and growing integration occasioned by the
adoption of a single European market. The Treaty of Amsterdam paved the way for new
actions in the adoption by the Council of Ministers of the Guidelines for Employment
(Luxembourg, 15 December 1997).
These rested on four pillars:
• Employability
• Entrepreneurship
• Adaptability
• Equal opportunities.
Management of diversity in European terms has been centrally linked therefore to the
question of enforcement of the principle of equality among citizens and the prohibition of
discrimination on a wide range of grounds. Legislation varies significantly between all
Member States. In most member States, however, there remains a gap between the legal
prohibition of discrimination and the actual outcomes for traditionally disadvantaged
groups. In all countries, legal proof of discrimination tends to be very difficult.
The dramatic changes in economic performance in recent years have been linked to
profound changes in social structure and demographic composition. A significant danger
has been identified in the fact that European rights are sometimes seen to be available
only to European citizens and not to the millions of external workers, refugees and
asylum seekers who have arrived in Europe. The extension of notions of equality of rights
of participation, citizenship and access beyond gender to all citizens and indeed non-
citizens is now a fundamental question of European social policy. It also goes to the core
of what is expected in practical applied programmes for the management of diversity at
micro-economic and local level as well as at that of national (or supra-national) levels.
Managing diversity in the context of fundamental social rights is an area of profound
importance to both policy makers and commercial organizations. The Supiot Report
identified key areas where progress needed to be made in the context of European
employment policy. These are:
1. Reinforcement of the right of free movement of labour and extension of that right to
non-Union nationals legally resident in the European Union. Fundamental rights
should not be based on nationality but on legally performed work.
2. Resolution of the issue of trade union rights at Union level.
3. The need for a European framework for information and consultation for companies
operating in the single market.
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9. 4. Recognition of the role of non-governmental organizations in the formulation and
implementation of Union social policy.
5. Pursuit of action at Union level to combat discrimination, especially on the grounds of
race.
6. Implementation of the fundamental principle of adaptation of work to the needs of the
worker, particularly in the context of working time.
Whatever about European policy directions, companies and commercial entities, both
private and public, have to grapple with unprecedented levels of change. In an
environment where the traditional concept of the organization itself is changing, renewed
interest is being placed on making the organization responsive and creative in responding
to internal as well as external needs.
Managing diversity can be seen, in its most minimalist, as a tool to enable companies to
adapt to challenges posed by differentiated workforces where expectations and levels of
communication may even be sources of potential conflict. In a more expansive context,
managing diversity may be seen as a powerful resource to benefit from the process of
change and to tap into levels of creativity and potential produced by such radical
departures from past certainties.
The professional Human Resource Management literature highlights these concerns in
evolving European contexts. This accepts that there may a shift away from organizational
forms based on markets and hierarchies and towards more network-based forms of
organization. The ‘new competition’ literature (Best 1990) points to the growth of small
entrepreneurial firms, of industrial districts and high-tech sectors that relate to each other
on a network basis. The network perspective directs attention away from formal structure
and policy towards the importance of patterns of social relationships within organizations.
Concepts of trust, reciprocity and reputation are central. Several factors are identified as
driving the adoption of network based forms of organization. These have interesting
consequences for our evaluation of the importance of managing diversity strategies in the
European context (Ferlie and Pettigrew 1996).
These factors are:
1. An increased requirement for flexibility and learning
2. Reduction of market uncertainty
3. Managing joint production
4. High technology base
5. Managing cultural diversity.
Ultimately, the literature makes clear that novel and unexpected forms of organizational
culture are emerging. While old certainties no longer exist, common needs remain. These
needs centre on forms of production and wealth generation that are flexible, equitable,
person centred and socially responsible. Managing diversity is about the diverse
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10. communities that have access, often for the first time, to labour market participation.
Managing diversity is also about maximizing the potential inherent in human focused
collaboration, however varied the seeming differences.
The European connection between labour market diversity and equality has been explored
with varying degrees of success in all Member States. In Ireland, with its recent history of
growth and development, this connection has assumed a powerful dynamic.
3. Irish Contexts: from dependence to diversity
A key starting point for the analysis of issues around policy impact and issues of social
inclusion is the nature and pace of change in modern Irish society. The nature and extent
of this change is producing a social configuration unlike anything that has preceded it.
The transition from rural to urban – common to all other societies globally – has occurred
in a context of continuing post-colonial adjustment in a politically divided society. In the
Irish experience, deep currents of violence and instability have paralleled this process of
social change.
The violence ranges from the more or less forced migration of hundreds of thousands
from their place of birth in the Republic since independence to the more overt, cyclic
violent instability in the North. Common concerns around underdevelopment and
ownership of wealth have been voiced in the context of perceived sectarianism,
discrimination and significant disparities in access to resources.
These unresolved conflicts of Irish societies and identities are the background to a deeper
understanding of social inequality than can be assumed from a more traditional version of
social change, divorced from context and history. With conflict over resources and
identity as a starting point rather than result, it is suggested we can develop a more
accurate picture of the tensions and difficulties (as well as the challenges and
opportunities) involved in policy formation. This analysis helps us to locate issues around
exclusion and inclusion in a proper framework of ownership and control - and access to
the fruits of ownership and control.
Change in Irish society is not a bland, steady progression of economic indices but an
unfolding and profound restructuring of all social, cultural, personal and ethnic
relationships and understandings. At almost every level of Irish social experience in the
late twentieth century there has occurred a profound and all-embracing re-examination of
what it means to be Irish.
This means that traditional certainties no longer apply. In fact, traditional certainties can
often be seen as no more than parochial reassurances of assumed identity.
The question of identity is at the core of much Irish social policy examination at present.
In this sense, Ireland is not unique. The profound upheavals at European and global levels
of the past century have often been intimately connected with identity and/or the assertion
of identity against assumed foes. The very project of the European Union has at its core
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11. an assumption of the need for Europe to assert its place in the world, although against
what (or for what) remains unstated. The reality is that European identity is as fragmented
as Irish identity. It has as much baggage for its own citizens as for those countless
millions who have been its colonial subjects.
Decades of deprivation, emigration, political violence, sexism, unemployment and
disadvantage are not overturned by a few years of prosperity. More importantly, the
attitudes, practices, rationalizations and understandings of those decades persist, and
persist profoundly, in the social and economic practices of modern Irish society and
governmental structures. The specific nature of Irish social dislocation intersects and is
organically connected to more widely recognized aspects of the process termed
globalization. The globalizing process is pervasive. It means that no discussion on policy
or strategy can be undertaken without a full parallel international understanding and
analysis.
The connection between generic Irish socio-economic development needs and the needs
of those groups currently accepted and defined as socially excluded is an important
theoretical perspective. It means that policy considerations can be informed by a dynamic
unique in European terms. In this dynamic, exclusion not power, emigration not
gastarbeiters, landlordism not colonies were the norm - not the other way around. Much
of this thinking has been occluded by the economic experience of the past decade that has
been euphemistically self-defined as the era of the Celtic Tiger.
It is not without interest that the image of the Celtic Tiger is a projection of self-image by
those who have benefited from the economic growth of the past number of years. It is a
not so subtle identification with the authoritarian economies of East Asia – whose crisis
and near-meltdown of the mid 1990s should be of interest to informed Irish observers.
The crisis of growth without responsibility, wealth generation without restraint is thus not
unique to Ireland.
The great risk to current levels of economic activity is that, failing an accurate analysis of
how prosperity emerged and its contours of in-built inegalitarianism, no mechanism of
understanding and redress will be present if circumstances change for the worse. Over-
reliance on one particular sector (e.g. information technology) or facile economic analysis
(trickle down wealth) can produce, at best, one-dimensional understanding.
The fact remains that modern Irish society is displaying worrying levels of uneven
development as well as disturbing levels of documented inequality, poverty and
discrimination. Environmental degradation, homelessness, two-tier social service
provision, absence of planning, asset stripping of public services and blind reliance on
ever-increasing consumption patterns are but some of the indices of current social
malaise.
At another level, has been the sustained attack – powerfully aided by some within at time
a nearly monopolistic media system – on concepts such as social justice, human rights,
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12. public morality and equitable distribution of wealth. One of the more distressing aspects
of this intellectual surrender, in the face of a rampant enterprize mindset, has been the
inability to conceptualize in terms that are not derivative, dated and shallow. The need for
a response that is connected to the real experiences of existing communities and their
needs is at the heart of this evaluation. The need for educational and training provision
that is innovative and dynamic is very different from perspectives that assume Irish
society is a stereotypical transition from rural to urban, peasant to modern, backward to
progressive.
Irish society is open, adaptable and flexible. It has benefited profoundly (thanks to
language and affinity) from its connection to the lessons of the great Civil Rights
movements in the United States. It has, through its diaspora, been at the centre of a
learning process where it can observe and understand the real nature of the global
economy in all its manifestations.
Membership of the European Union has also had a profound effect on the sensibility and
structure of Irish social institutions. This has had both negative and positive aspects. On
the one hand, there has been the culture of subsidy and the mindset of unilinear economic
expansion. Under the guise of the need for standardization and market harmonization,
significant areas of autonomy and local decision-making have been impaired. The
sustained inability of the institutions of the European Union to overcome their self-
declared ‘democratic deficit’ has been a major failing. The lack of transparency and
accountability (shared however with most national governments) has placed a new
emphasis on societies to re-assert the meaning and importance of a dynamic democracy.
On the other hand, the European Union’s emphasis on a social market model and
partnership finds a ready resonance in the Irish body politic. In fact, it can be cogently
argued that it is this aspect, with its lavish redistribution of resources from richer to
poorer areas of the Union, which has been a significant contributor to Ireland’s recent
prosperity. At another level, the European Union, through its specific funds and
Community Initiative programmes, has allowed the creation of community to community
linkages across the Union where much learning and exchange has occurred. This influx of
money, ideas and standards has propelled Irish society to a point where it has had to
address the educational, training and social needs of its citizens as of right in their country
of birth for the first time since the establishment of the State.
This exposure to external ideas, coupled to the need to provide for a growing population
with new expectations and a sense of entitlement, has transformed Ireland into a
questioning and confident society.
The depiction of Ireland as a homogeneous and uniform cultural polity is a recent and
flawed one. It has its origins in the settlements achieved by the Land League, the
pervasive cultural expansion of the Roman Catholic Church in the post-Famine era and
the inert conservatism of the two States which emerged from the Partition settlement. The
trauma of the last thirty years has been in equal measure linked to social change,
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13. urbanization, inequality and cultural identities as much as it has been to movement for
political unification or resistance to unification.
For our purposes, the key point is that Ireland has never been a uniform or agreed socio-
political entity. The nature of Irish society has been a fragmented, divided and polyglot
one. In its very fibres, Ireland has been a laboratory of diversity. Its cultural mosaic has
encompassed layers of identity not to be expected in a remote offshore island. Its
discontinuities and divisions have however been the source of extraordinary creativity
and interplay, where no one culture (Celtic, Gaelic, Danish, Norman French, English,
Scottish, Flemish, Jewish or Huguenot) has had a monopoly of Irishness.
This should provide a useful starting point for understanding the challenges and
opportunities that are involved in policy responses, regarding diversity management.
The derivative and imported nature of much Irish legislation and social policy has been an
issue of note for many decades. Irish schooling, for example, has tended to model itself
on and compete with external systems, largely British. This has tended to deprive Irish
social discourse of authentic indigenous voices addressing concerns, albeit from a
perspective of international best practice. Particularly in community spheres like
disability, gerontology, health services planning, gender studies, housing provision,
spatial planning, transport and cultural diversity the first instinct has often been to reach
for imported models, both of analysis and of practice.
Two issues emerge strongly from this. One is the question of equality of opportunity.
Embedded firmly in the thinking and values of the French Revolution, equality as a
concept has been a highly contentious issue in Europe ever since. From Napoleon to
Thatcher, equality has been often derided and demeaned as a concept. In the United States
there is a richer tradition of the acceptance and assertion of rights but a corresponding
marginalization of the need to accept any underlying a priori equal status between human
beings, except in the context of the obligations of citizenship. Equality should not be
seen therefore as axiomatic and widely accepted in all western societies.
Second is the question of the norm against which diversity is judged. In charting the poor
levels of access for those experiencing social exclusion, the literature of the European
Union for example refers constantly to ‘average’ persons. In a context where the average
is never defined or the normal spelled out, it is difficult to see diversity as anything other
than that which is variably defined at any one time by individuals and structures which
envisage themselves as average or normal. Clearly this value-ridden concept is less than
useful. Further, it neglects the issue of power relations and control in existing societies.
The norm clearly does not refer to a statistical average. Nor does it refer to a historical
constant. Its very use contains the bias against which equality approaches must engage. It
can be assumed that average refers to white, male, urban, able-bodied, young and
educated people. However this is only an assumption. What is important is that
conceptual clarity be employed from the outset in approaching issues around diversity.
What is important is that a rigorous analysis of the existing conditions and characteristics
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14. of the presenting society be employed to make sense of the discrimination in practice and
attitude that exists.
Not withstanding the endervours that have been made in recent years within the
framework of social partnerships this has been done inadequately in Ireland. Policy has
addressed social exclusion in a largely mechanistic and ad hoc manner. Adding to the
difficulty has been the historic tradition of the State (at both national and local levels) to
avoid responsibility for issues around promotion of diversity - seeing them as the
province of charity or ‘voluntary’ effort.
4. Managing Diversity: Irish labour market trends
The Irish labour market has undergone fundamental shifts in recent years. Emerging from
a history of neo-colonialism, Irish industry has found itself thrust into a rapidly evolving
world market. At the same time its success has generated for the first time in the history
of the State, a net inward migration. European standards, and the increasing levels of
awareness and education of the indigenous population, have brought a renewed emphasis
on rights and social inclusion. The rigid hierarchies of traditional Irish society, which
viewed itself as homogeneous and uniform, have been profoundly challenged. A new
Ireland is emerging quite unlike anything that has gone before.
In this context the increasing diversity of Irish society has been recognized in a number of
ways. In economic policy terms, the State is driven by an open market and trading
orientation externally, and a social partnership model internally. This means that national
employment policy is focused on growing employment in a context where the State
secures collaboration between employers and trade unions.
The government of the Republic has a vigorous programme of tax incentives and
inducements to attract external industrial and economic investment. With some variations
in effectiveness, this has produced a significantly more open and prosperous economy.
The accompanying levels of social and cultural change have transformed the country into
a contemporary, urbanized and – in recent years – relatively wealthy society. The growth
in education and employment opportunities has been reflected in the demise of
emigration. In recent years a net inflow of people has occurred as emigrants and many
foreigners arrive to access the benefits of an economy which has been booming since the
early 1990s.
The booming economy has masked, however, continuing social inequalities and
disparities in access to income. A legacy of centuries of impoverishment and
underdevelopment is not cast off in a mere decade. On many levels the struggle for social
and civil rights has also been a characteristic of Irish society in recent years. It is not
surprizing that in a country dominated by the ethos of the Roman Catholic church, issues
around women, reproductive rights, education, charity, the role of the State and civil
legislation have dominated public discourse.
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15. In social and educational affairs the State traditionally played almost no part, leaving such
issues to the Church. As women have massively entered the workforce, as education has
become more pluralist, as minority rights have been asserted and as the State has been
forced (often through national and European courts) to accept its responsibilities, the
social landscape of Ireland has altered profoundly and irrevocably.
Weak levels of indigenous investment, rampant property speculation, lack of civil
transparency, poor levels of planning and research, chronic infrastructural deficits and
shabby levels of public service (a result of the de-investment strategies and cuts of the
1980s) have resulted in a society where the benefits of growth and prosperity are not
equally distributed. In addition, the locus of industrial growth and investment has largely
been outside the State. Beneficial tax regimes for foreign investment mean that United
States investment alone is one of the highest per capita in the world.
The issue of marginalization in Irish society has provided an important starting point for
the development of a vigorous and impressive debate on equality. Equality legislation –
of which Ireland has now some of the most advanced in Europe – is explicitly linked to
issues of poverty and access to resources.
Equality can be defined as the concept that all human beings have the same rights. It does
not mean uniformity or sameness. Concepts of equality link closely to concepts of
tolerance and democracy. The struggle for the recognition of human rights is seen as one
of the key tasks of contemporary Irish society.
Ireland’s experience as a colonized country, with centuries of enforced underdevelopment
and external domination, give it a unique perspective in European terms when it comes to
the analysis of power, inequality and difference. This experience intersects with other
European societies in a number of generic areas of concern. These are the thematic
starting points to look at the nature of inequality and how the resulting exclusion and
impoverishment can be addressed in developing a common European response.
The State established the Equality Authority on a statutory basis in 2000. This has proved
to be of enormous significance. The passage of the Employment Equality Act in 1998 and
the Equal Status Act in 2000 have outlawed discrimination under a number of headings.
These are:
• Disability
• Gender
• Marital status
• Family status
• Age
• Race
• Sexual orientation
• Religion
• Membership of the Travelling Community.
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16. The Equality Authority has spearheaded a campaign to highlight the increasing diversity
of Irish society. It has promoted a greater sense of public awareness and has sponsored a
series of initiatives. Among these is an equality auditing process for Irish firms to see how
they understand the principles of the new legislation and how companies may best
respond to the needs of a diverse workforce.
These positive developments occur at a time when the unemployment rate in Ireland has
halved since 1997, economic growth has continued at over 10% per year, those at work
have increased dramatically and government policies are showing awareness of changing
labour market conditions. A strong feature of this approach has been to involve both trade
unions and employer organizations in joint initiatives to promote awareness of diversity
and development of positive responses to a changing workforce.
Significant barriers remain however. The glass ceiling difficulties noted in the American
literature have been replicated in Irish conditions. Women still remain excluded from
access to promotion and are significantly underrepresented at senior managerial levels.
The structure of work itself has created family-unfriendly attitudes and resources.
Demand for childcare has escalated with the economic boom and demand for labour. Yet
there is no state or public system. The cost remains prohibitive (and the quality is capable
of significant variation in view of the lack of enforced national standards). Those with
low incomes can seldom afford the childcare available or cannot access it at all. Without
adequate State provision these women are left further behind.
Second is the area of vocational training. In the area of job training many programmes
have simply not been related to labour market needs, but rather to the need to keep figures
on the live register of the unemployed as low as possible. A recent study by the Economic
and Social Research Institute (ESRI: Investing in People: The Labour Market Impact of
Human Resource Intervention Funded under the 1994-1999 Community Support
Framework in Ireland, Dublin 2001) found that employment schemes with strong market
linkages were most successful in promoting sustained employment. It further found that
expenditure on human resource development accounted for over one-third of EU
expenditure in the Republic in the 1994-99 period and yet 50% of the job training
schemes had had no effect. This has had a disproportionate effect on marginalized groups,
like those with disabilities.
Training and education in the area of diversity has been underdeveloped. In the area of
disability awareness, many voluntary agencies have attempted to highlight issues of
concern and to promote greater degrees of consciousness among human resource
specialists and trainers. No systematic national programme has been developed however.
In regards to disability, national policy is formally one of mainstreaming, yet resources to
promote mainstreaming have simply not been provided in labour market contexts.
For managers, only one programme in the area of diversity has been delivered – the
Diploma in Professional Studies – Managing Diversity. This was developed by Ireland’s
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17. largest private sector employer, Waterford Crystal, and delivered in association with
University College Cork.
The awareness that Ireland is now a multicultural and diverse society is widely accepted.
What is not clear is how this relates to conceptual clarity, understanding of historic
cultural differences and mechanisms of change in the labour market itself. Responses
based on other countries’ reactions to racial diversity, for example, may not necessarily
reflect the realities of Irish labour conditions. Ireland will need to build on its own lessons
of past disenfranchisement to overcome contemporary blockages. Forging a common
sense of Irishness that is at once multi-layered and complex is no easy task in light of
Irish political history.
Legislation can prevent more blatant forms of discrimination. In a society where
legislation itself has often reinforced discrimination, a more fundamental challenge to
models of diversity management and inclusion may be needed. Promotion of tolerance
that works in the interest of all social stakeholders will require significant investment in
work-based learning, innovative management training systems and person-centred
strategic planning to inculcate principles of diversity. This may be done in an employer
led context using, among other tools, EU funded initiatives like EQUAL (Bruce 2001).
While anti-discrimination legislation has produced conformance much remains to be done
in the area of education and positive programmes that promote a vigorous and
multidimensional socio-economic entity.
1. References
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5. Henderson, G. (1994). Cultural Diversity in the Workplace. Westport: Praeger.
6. Gardensatz, L. and Rowe, A. (1993). Managing Diversity: A Complete Desk
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School.
8. Ferrara, M. (1998). Le Trappole del Welfare. Bologna.
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11. Best, M. (1990). The New Competition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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Management, 7, 581-599.
13. Mabey, C. (2000). Strategic Human Resource Management. London: Open
University Press.
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18. 14. Bruce, A. (2001). Learning with Europe. Waterford: Waterford Crystal.
15. Equality Authority (2002). Annual Report. Dublin: Department of Justice, equality
and Law Reform.
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