An Irish recipe for recession

Ireland's economy suffered a spectacular bust after a resounding boom. The crash has been particularly harsh for local architects, who along with armies of builders were at the forefront of the country's property-led economic growth. In the collapse of the construction sector, most of the victims were men, as the industry is overwhelmingly male, but a percentage of the architects who underwent years of training and now find themselves out of a job — or at least a job they are meant to do — are women.

A survey carried out by the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland in December 2008 showed that almost one-third of the over 800 architects in Ireland were unemployed or seeking jobs.

The job scenario may be dismal, but what Irish women architects have in their favour is a long history of creativity, adaptability and flexibility. Many have shown a liking towards entrepreneurship and among them is Dubliner Catherine De Groot, 26, who has built a designer confectionery called Bake My Cake.

As her Web site, Bakemycake.ie explains in icing sugar colours, Catherine found herself “an architect with a little more time on her hands” and so she embraced recession by turning to “her passion for pastry”. With the emphasis on “my cake”, all Catherine's creations are highly personalised. Her stand-out successes, so far, have included a chocolate biscuit version of the Statue of Liberty and cakes in the form of designer shoes, complete with shoe boxes.

“I kind of feel it would be a shame to go back to architecture now,” says Catherine. “I really enjoy having my own business and probably what I like the most is you have so few limitations,” she says, although she would like a bigger kitchen.

Coming from a long line of very good cooks has proved to be as valid as seven years of university and apprenticeship to become one of roughly 30 per cent of Ireland's qualified women architects, as per membership of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland.

On occasion, Catherine has carefully drawn up plans for her cakes, but finds that with experience, she doesn't always need them — not an approach any architect would adopt. But then again, architects leave the construction work to others, whereas Catherine is designer, constructor, accountant and office administrator. Of course, there is some help at hand.

Ireland's 35 enterprise boards have women's networks, which Angela Tynan of the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Country Enterprise Board (CEB), Catherine's local branch, describes as a “very powerful tool” designed to assist the “entrepreneurial culture”, which she says prevails in Ireland. The CEBs advise, mentor, help secure grants and provide support for training and growth of new and established businesses.

The networks enable enterprising women to meet each other and the boards also arrange talks and training, but they have a long way to go to close the wide gender gap in rates of self-employment between women and men.

According to statistics from Eurostat, self-employment among the 27 European Union member States is twice as much among men as women.

In Ireland, where typically male farmers account for many of the self-employed, the gap between men and women running their own business — some would say the ultimate in self-empowerment — is particularly marked.

The latest figures from Eurostat showed that self-employed men represented 23.6 per cent of the employed population, compared with 6.8 per cent of women in 2000. By 2007, 22.8 per cent of the employed population was made up of self-employed men and 6.1 per cent of women. The gender gap had narrowed fractionally from 16.8 to 16.7.

But the spirit of enterprise seems to be on the rise, as proved by new and successful businesswomen like Catherine, who are willing to give up years of specialised university education and apprenticeship to run their own outfits.

© Women's Feature Service

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