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Policies on Poverty, Exclusion and Inequalityholding only precarious employment or none at all. The Councilbelieves that the identification of the specific groups at risk and thedesign of a holistic strategy for each of them have become essentialif their social inclusion is to be strengthened through employment.The holistic strategy must cover the availability and attractivenessof work, the balance of financial incentives, education and training,and availability and access to services such as care, transport andcounselling (European Commission, 2002c). In this context, theCouncil notes the major significance of the work of the EQUALDevelopment Partnerships and the Supported EmploymentProgramme for people with disabilities.8.9.3 Women returnersThe Council would particularly like to highlight the contributionthat women with low levels of educational attainment have made tonational progress, and are expected to make. “The story of Ireland’seconomic transformation rests in part upon the story of womenreturners” (Russell et al, 2002). 8 From 1994 to 2000, the numbers ofwomen in home duties fell from approximately 581,000 to 531,000,and from 43.4 per cent of adult women to 34.8 per cent. Table 8.2 isbased on data from the Living in Ireland Survey in 1994 and 1998,broken down by sex and educational level. It shows that, while theemployment rate of low skilled men in the open labour markethardly changed over a five-year period of rapid economic growth,that of low skilled women rose markedly and even outpaced the risein employment among their higher skilled sisters. Recourse totemporary employment schemes grew markedly for the low skilledof both genders. The increase in the employment rate for low skilledwomen (open labour market and schemes combined) came largelyat the expense of their being engaged in home duties, rather thanunemployment. This is a consequence of how women report theirlabour market status, such that they often make transitions directlyfrom “outside the labour force” to employment without ever havingbeen recorded as unemployed. By contrast, the increase in the8. Women returners are women who enter or re-enter employment, education ortraining having spent a period in full-time caring or home duties.397