Looking Across the Border: Comparing Gendered Policy Frameworks

ABSTRACT: This article explores changes in public policy and services with a strong gender dimension in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement, in terms of an observed gap between actual policy and service provision and activists’ views. On abortion services, welfare benefits, levels of poverty, and gender recognition and transgender rights, the Republic’s policy framework and supports are more focused on gender equality than the equivalent regimes in Northern Ireland. Perceptions of equality issues have changed in the aftermath of the abortion and marriage equality referenda in the South, but the level of detailed knowledge of policy on the ‘other’ side of the border is low, even for those active in women’s organisations. Cross-border perceptions were often not supported by contemporary evidence. This comparative analysis shows that in the Republic, policy and practice have produced stronger gender equality outcomes in almost every area of the women’s rights agenda.