A gender equality report, compiled by the European Commission, shows that, of all 25 EU member states, Malta has the lowest difference in remuneration given to men and women for their jobs.
According to this report, the difference in Malta is just 4%, while the EU 25 average is 15%. The country with the lowest pay-gap following Malta is Italy, with 6%. The biggest pay-gaps result in the Czech Republic and Estonia with an average difference of 25%.
On the other hand, in other gender equality benchmarks, Malta doesn't score that well and most of the time ends up at the end of the statistical comparisons of the 25 Member States.
The report provides an annual insight into gender equality in the EU and for the first time includes also data from the 10 new member states.
It shows that gender employment and education gaps are closing in all the EU. This is also happening in Malta were at university level, females outnumber males. However Malta still has the lowest number of per capita students at tertiary level in the entire EU.
As regards employment, Malta has the lowest rate of employed females and the highest gender employment gap out of all the 25 EU countries. With an average gender employment gap of 15.8% in the EU, Malta registered a staggering 40% difference between men and women in the labour market.
When it comes to women occupying managerial position in the labour market, Malta is again at the end of the list together with Cyprus and Italy, registering just 20% in the number of women managers. The average in the EU-25 is 31%, with the best performing countries being Latvia, Lithuania and France.
The report also points out that reconciling work and family life remains a problem for many women across the EU. It states that "women with children have lower employment rates than those without. The majority of domestic work in the home is still carried out by women. A lack of affordable child care remains an obstacle to equality."
At the same time, women's lower participation in the labour market means that their pension entitlements are significantly lower than men's. And gaps between older men and women are more acute, with elderly women more at risk of poverty than men.
On the other hand, women are expected to live longer in the absence of limitations in functioning/disability than men in most member states (except in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, UK, the Netherlands and Finland.
The Commission said that increased integration of women into the workforce will release the productive potential of the EU and increase social cohesion, in line with the Lisbon strategy. EU legislation has already advanced equal treatment, in particular through its new directive on equal treatment of men and women in the provision of goods and services.