Editorial

What do women want?

Mel Gibson may have been given the gift to find out but when it comes to females returning to the workforce, the rest of us seem doomed to remain in the dark.

The university's Centre for Labour Studies and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Institute have carried out a study on dual worker families in Malta. It found conflicting conclusions to two questions: The majority of women (65.1 per cent) would keep working if their (economic) circumstances changed even though about 60 per cent say they work to make ends meet. The publication, edited by Saviour Rizzo, states succinctly: "One may conclude that most spouses are in a state of ambivalence".

The study throws up many interesting figures. For example, over a third of women work to make ends meet, and 7.2 per cent work to escape boredom at home. Another 12.3 per cent work to pursue their career. Private school fees are often assumed to be the reason women must supplement their husband's income but, in fact, only 2.8 per cent of parents listed this as a reason.

One of the obstacles highlighted by those surveyed is that working women feel squeezed for time. Flexitime or teleworking would be the obvious solution. But why are they not more prevalent?

According to the Employment and Training Corporation, only 3.8 per cent of local companies allow teleworking (where the employee works remotely via IT). Surely this is a heaven-sent solution for women who are spared the time and disruption of taking children to child-care.

While it is obviously not suitable for many workplaces, the problem is often one of management outlook. It works overseas. In Sweden, about 30 per cent of companies employing fewer than 50 persons use some form of telework. In spite of its proven success in attracting and keeping women in the workplace, management needs to overcome the inherent lack of trust in its employees and must also find a way to overcome the feeling of distrust by the teleworker's colleague. It is not impossible.

Flexitime likewise deserves greater uptake. While clearly not a solution for every company, sometimes the flexibility required is minimal. An employee that can fulfill her working obligations without fretting about her family or home duties is likely to be more productive, less stressed, more mentally alert.

And, yet, women are not shouting out loud enough for these opportunities - which means that companies do not offer them.

Do women admit the truth about their motivation - even to themselves? Is money the real reason or is it just one that is easier to justify to society?

"There is a widely held belief that parents of small children cannot devote themselves adequately to both work and family and that any neglect of their duties is often accompanied by personal feelings of guilt and social condemnation," the preface by centre chairman Edward L. Zammit concludes.

Women who work are the best role models for those who do not. Perhaps working women who realise they can cope with the pressures of job and home view the return to the relative anonymity of the kitchen sink with reluctance while those who are contemplating trying to cope with home and work are too afraid to take the plunge.

Getting women back to the workplace is important - and not just from a personal development point of view. Malta aims to boost the number of women in the workforce from seven per cent to 41 per cent by 2010 but that will never be possible unless we understand what women really want.