Women closing in on men

Maltese women are on the road to closing the gap with the opposite sex, particularly in employment and education, but they still did more housework and earned less than men.

A new report published in Brussels showed Maltese women were slowly but surely moving forward, even though the gap in equality between women and men in Malta is much wider than the average in the EU.

The number of women in the Maltese labour market rose by almost two percentage points between 2002 and 2007, up from 33.9 to 35.8 per cent, according to the report. At the same time, the men's participation rate dropped from 74.7 per cent in 2002 to 72.9 in 2007.

Despite the positive trend, Malta is still trailing behind the EU average in women's employment where the average in 2007 stood at 58.3 per cent, more than 20 percentage points above Malta's.

Apart from Malta, two other Mediterranean member states - Italy and Greece - trail at the bottom of the EU's women's employment participation classification.

Education is another area where women are doing very well, even much better than men.

In 2007, 69 per cent of Maltese women aged 20 to 24 had attained at least an upper secondary level of education, an impressive increase of 17.4 per cent in just five years.

Comparatively, 51.8 per cent of males in the same age group reached the same educational standard in 2007. However, when compared to 2002, the increase remains significant at 15.7 per cent.

The report also revealed one thing in common across the EU when it comes to the difference between the sexes: housework and family life are definitely still a woman's area.

Based on a 2005 survey among women who had full-time employment, the average Maltese woman spent 22.6 hours a week on domestic and family work as opposed to men's mere 7.7 hours. This reflects the trend in the EU where the average is similar to Malta.

According to the report, on average, an EU woman with a paid job dedicated an average of 25.5 hours a week to housework while men spent just 7.8 hrs.

Meanwhile, on the occasion of International Women's Day, which will be marked on Sunday, the European Commission yesterday launched an EU-wide campaign to help tackle the gender pay-gap.

Across the EU economy, women earned on average 17.4 per cent less than men. The concept of equal pay for work of equal value is at the heart of the campaign. It will include the promotion of good practices and advertising across the 27 member states.