THE past 25 years or more have seen dramatic changes in the workplace, with women fighting hard to whittle down the barriers and achieve their current employment status.

Despite that, they may well be still some way short of parity with men – yet, unfairly, the cuts about to be imposed on the public sector will have a greater impact on women than on their male counterparts.

Almost half the women who are in work on Merseyside – 48%, or 137,070 in total – are employed in public sector services such as the NHS, schools and caring services, compared to just 20% of the working male population.

That seems desperately little reward for women’s hard-won place in the transformed employment market.

Why should it be that women carry an unjust burden of the financial measures which have effectively been necessary because of the mistakes made in British banks’ male- dominated boardrooms?

Even worse, perhaps, these damning statistics have emerged today, on International Women’s Day, which should be celebrating the great strides forward made in the workplace, rather than being used to condemn the employment inequalities which suddenly appear never to have gone away.

We all appreciate that the current serious budget deficit has to be tackled and overcome. But maybe the Government’s declared target of halving the deficit within five years is too ambitious, and will have too severe an impact on the workforce – and women in particular.

International Women’s Day today will mark the progress that has been made in getting women into the workplace – but the Government’s cuts in public services will undoubtedly take that progress several steps backwards.