Social security policy encompasses the broad range of ways a society provides income support to its citizens of all ages. For example, Malta provides for two basic schemes - contributory and non-contributory.
Clearly, social security policy is high on the government's agenda with the pension scheme currently under review and the simultaneous restructuring of the social security department with Irish expertise. However, despite the legal framework and ideology from the top, the continuing assumption of women's economic dependence on their men seems to run like a thread through the Maltese social security system.
To what extent does Malta's social security policy reflect and perhaps even reinforce the ideology of a family wage for men, and economic dependence of women? The impact of this assumption is to affect fundamentally the structured opportunities for autonomy available to all women, but especially those without a male partner or those who have no desire to enter a long-term relationship with a man.
The central question in this article is whether women's full citizenship in Malta consists in treating them as autonomous individuals or as their men's dependents. To this end, I shall touch upon core themes in the range of Malta's social security provisions, in earnings-related benefits and the non-contributory scheme.
Why is a gender-sensitive analysis important?
In his study of Malta's social policy, Maurice Mullard, adviser to Government between 1998 and 2000, contends that while Malta's pension system is generous, the minimum wage, social assistance, child and unemployment benefits cause poverty traps for families with children.
Malta's pension scheme based on PAYG guarantees two-thirds of salaries and wages for those who retire.
His report also points to means-tested child benefit paid on annual incomes of up to Lm5,000 and it is calculated that 40% of the 41,000 households claiming child benefit, register incomes below Lm4,000 per annum. This would suggest that 40% of households in Malta are earning below Lm5,000. In this sense, Mullard claims that low wages are a problem for a large number of households in Malta.
While Mullard's study makes valuable contribution to welfare literature, and especially to Maltese policy makers who had then hired his expertise, it is clearly devoid of a gender-sensitive analysis. The report misses the key issue of assessing the extent of gender equality in Malta's social security policy and whether its system of family support and benefits treat men and women as individuals or as members of household.
For example, Mullard highlights the creation of poverty traps in terms of low wages, unemployment benefits, social assistance and child benefits among households and families, but makes no mention of women. Neither is the study indicative of the number of households and families headed by women or how many of those headed by women include dependent adults and children. Indeed, this is a key issue for any welfare institution, as gender-neutral households may effectively disguise gender-based poverty.
Official studies tend to rely on household or family as a measuring device, showing little concern for the gender of those in the household or family, and wholly unable to uncover which household members benefit from household income. For example, data on social protection expenditure in Malta address gender-neutral households and individuals at risk or in need, however, make no distinction between male and female claimants of benefits, in cash or in kind, in terms of problems related to unemployment, housing, family and children, old age, disability, health and social exclusion.
In the local context, expenditure to combat social exclusion covers problems related to drugs, poverty, domestic violence and alcohol. For example, to what extent is gender bias in old-age retirement of concern to policymakers in Malta?
The preservation of 'dependent' women?
Writings all point to the absence of an employment record as a key risk factor to social exclusion and poverty, particularly for women when combined with family break-up and where old-age pension depends on work record. Malta has certainly shown concern about women's high rate of economic inactivity, however, such concern is tentative and naïve and rarely improves the situation.
Services needed to change the division of labour in the home to enable women to take advantage of public opportunities are lacking, and Malta's family friendly policies are too restrictive to provide effective help. For example, the Employment and Training Corporation seems oblivious to the inherent disadvantages women face, and still questions whether economically inactive women "wish to work" and "under which conditions" in a study of women's inactivity and aspirations presented to the public last year.
Examples that point to a social security regime where rights are tied to labour market position and by the ideology of women's economic dependence on men are the full rate benefits in the contributory scheme of Retirement Pension and Supplementary Allowances that are higher for men than for women.
The law lays down rates for "a married man who is maintaining his wife" while women's entitlement to benefits fall under "any other person". Malta's social security system, which draws on the 1942 Beveridge scheme long discarded in UK welfare institutions, is dominated by the survivor model where marriage is the basis of pensions, as dependent wives and widows, and key to most women's incomes in old age.
In parallel, Maltese women's assumed dependence in families is also reflected in such benefits as the Age Pension, a non-contributory allowance that is lower for women, and the Widow's Pension or Survivor's Pension, granted as long as the late husband satisfies the relevant contribution conditions.
Whereas men's entitlement to state benefits is associated with paid work, rules for women's eligibility may be more stringent and their rights to benefits may be derived through their status as wives, widows and mothers. Insurance-based benefits are largely the prerogative of men, while assistance-based benefits are of disproportionate importance to women.
Unspoken prejudices?
Employment breaks for child care are prevalent among Maltese women, however, interruption in insurable employment affects the requirement of a stipulated number of contributions for the entitlement of a minimum old-age pension. For women in most industrialised countries, parenthood is a predictor of poverty in later life.
Interestingly, Malta's public sector employees lose their right to national insurance contribution during their four-year unpaid career break. By contrast, most European member states give some form of recognition in pension calculation for women who spend time out of the labour market performing caring duties.
For example, in Greece, women who have raised children are entitled to bring forward retirement age by three years for each child, and in Austria time spent raising children is considered as a working period calculated at the rate of four years per child.
Under Malta's social security scheme, married women who provide care to relatives who are sick or with a disability are denied a carer pension for two reasons. Firstly, it is assumed that caring is a woman's role, and secondly, women are assumed economically dependent on their male spouse.
Although there is no sign that women are rejecting these caring roles, implications are that when women undertake unpaid care work, they forfeit not only employment opportunities, but also future income security through social security entitlements.
Marital conflict and homelessness
Women's economic reliance on men makes them vulnerable, particularly in situations of marital conflict. For example, a short-term 'non-contributory' Emergency Assistance was introduced in Malta's social security scheme in 1989. The benefit is "granted to a female who is or has been rendered destitute by the head of household to the extent that she becomes an inmate of any institute for the care and welfare of such persons."
Destitute cases include economically dependent women in violent relationships and women undergoing separation proceedings. Much has been said in Malta about developing a policy framework and legal protection that curbs violence against women. However, governments have failed to address violence and violent relationships in an integrated and coherent way.
Often, women's only option is to put up with the situation or, if the situation becomes unbearable, she may leave the matrimonial home together with her dependent children, to seek shelter elsewhere. Clearly, this is easier said than done. While housing policies may enable or discourage separation and the ability of women to escape violent partners, Malta's housing policy makes it very difficult for women to obtain housing after marriage breakdown or domestic violence.
Income-pooling units and power relations
There are other examples of how Malta's social security policies are predicated upon the male breadwinner model and the gendered division of labour in the home. For example, Malta's contributory scheme, or earnings-related benefits are individual entitlements that are expected to provide for the family. To this effect, the Department of Social Security in Malta, states clearly that the contributory scheme "is universal since it practically covers all strata of our society".
Despite such persuasive claims, it is common practice in Malta for a non-working wife to rely on her husband's benevolence for housekeeping money. Malta's social security policy makes extensive reference to "a married man who is maintaining his wife", thus reinforcing women's assumed economic dependence on men and men's need for the family wage, an ideology of the traditional gender arrangement that is strongly supported by the Church in Malta.
Historically, women have typically gained welfare entitlements by virtue of their dependent status within the family as wives, the justification being a division of labour perceived to follow 'naturally' on their capacity for motherhood. Despite the ideology of a male family wage, women's access to that income is not assured, and in each case, women's entitlement to income security is tenuous.
Studies suggest that women are disadvantaged when the household is treated as an income-pooling unit in social security programmes. Although it is assumed that income security policies provide benefits that support all family members equally, evidence signals that it is not always the case. Whether benefits are paid to men or to women will affect power relations, as well as spending patterns, within the family.
By contrast, in countries such as the Netherlands and Japan, women's household work is recognised and remunerated with a full pension. In the Netherlands, women who have been ful-time homemakers for most of their life are still entitled to a full pension in their own right, rather than on the basis of their husband's employment record and contribution. Similarly, in Japan, full-time homemakers receive a pension without having to contribute to the national pension scheme.
Scholars argue that the feminisation of poverty, and women's dependence on social assistance rather than social insurance benefits, is striking evidence of the failure of welfare states and their social security schemes to take account of women's special needs in relation to balancing home and work. Indeed, Malta's social security system still fails to deal adequately with women's poverty, often hidden within the family where income is not always shared fairly.
A 2005 study by the European Commission suggests that some countries are adapting their pension systems by awarding pension rights for periods of care for children, dependent elderly or disabled persons. Which way are policymakers looking, now when it matters most?
Dr Camilleri-Cassar, who graduated Ph.D. from Nottingham University, is a social scientist with special research interest in welfare states and gender regimes and the social policy implications of EU expansion for the labour market. Her doctoral thesis is a forthcoming Agenda publication titled Gender Equality in Maltese Social Policy? Graduate Women and the Male Breadwinner Model (ISBN 99932-672-3-6). E-mail: frances.camilleri-cassar@um.edu.mt