Ivan Camilleri, Brussels
More women in employment
But Malta still struggling to reach EU job levels
Women are trickling back to the working world, registering a five per cent growth in the five years to 2008, but Malta still ranks last in the EU when it comes to female employment levels.
The percentage of working Maltese women aged 15-64 rose to 37.4 per cent last year, an increase of almost two per cent on the previous year and up from 32.7 per cent in 2004, according to the Employment in Europe report, published by the European Commission in Brussels yesterday.
Italy is one place up from Malta with 47.2 per cent, almost 10 percentage points ahead. The average female employment rate in the EU was 59.1 per cent in 2008. Some member states such as Denmark and Sweden had rates higher than 70 per cent.
Malta's extremely low rate is negatively affecting the island's overall employment level, which at 55.2 per cent was last year also the lowest among member states. The average employment rate in the EU stood at 64.5 per cent.
The report gives an account of the type of employment Malta's working population was engaged in last year: 11.9 per cent were self-employed while 11.5 per cent described their main activity as part-time, up from 10.9 per cent in 2007. Meanwhile, 4.3 per cent of those employed had a fixed-term contract, down from 5.1 per cent in 2007.
The report also sheds light on the effect the recession had on employment in the EU. Although Malta is affected, with unemployment levels increasing in the past year, the extent is not as severe as that in other member states.
According to the report, by September 2009 Malta's unemployment rate increased by more than one per cent when compared to the previous 12 months but the increase in the EU was much worse.
The unemployment rate in the EU has remained on an upward trend since spring last year and by September 2009 had increased to 9.2 per cent, a rise of 2.5 percentage points compared to spring 2008.
Malta's unemployment rate last September stood at 7.2 per cent.
The European Commission said that although the recession was felt in all member states, the severity of the unemployment increase varied widely across countries.
"The increase has been precipitous in certain member states (unemployment rates roughly doubled over the last year in Ireland and Spain, and tripled in the Baltic States) but in contrast unemployment remained remarkably low in Austria and the Netherlands."
The only EU member state which registered a growth in employment despite the recession was Luxembourg.
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GiovDeMartino@C Farrugia
Nov 27th 2009, 16:17
I wonder why any adult should find it so difficult to understand such a simple explanation. When a father goes out to work- as nature intended- chn, unless they are at school, will have theirmother to look after them. When both parents work, the chn are simply abandoned. Ikunu qishom irjus maqtugha. Erwieh mitlufa! Minn ghand nanna ghal ghand ohra...jmorru d-dar ma jsibu 'l hadd...ihossuhom, u jkunu, abbandunati. The married woman's place is at home, waiting for her husband and chn The more women go out to work, the more broken families. BIL-FATTI. we all know how the majority of males behave when they meet a woman. And we all know how the majority of women enjoy the attention given to them by males. An old friend of mine who worked a s a school caretaker once told me: Sur Martinu, il-flus u n-nisa la tafdahom ma hadd! Kellu hafna, hafna ragun. Jikteb ma kienx jaf, imma.........
CFarrugia
Nov 25th 2009, 19:18
Giov de Martino
and when men work 12 hours a day, are the woman and children not abandonened too? I do not understand why you attribute the problem to women working, your argument does not hold water, cause if it is the other way round the man a workaholic and abandoning the children and wife you have no problem with that? the children would be abandoned only if the father does not do his duties if his wife is working, the work should be split up 50, 50, both housework and childcare. I do not see why it is only the work of the women to bring up children, there are no studies which say that only women can only bring up children (as you seem to be suggesting)
GiovDeMartino
Nov 25th 2009, 11:43
You may ncall me fundamentalist, tou may say that I am living in the middle ages....you may call me whatever you like. The more women who go out to work, the more abondened children and husbands and the more broken families. And we all know how abondoned chn grow up and we also know that "the child is father of the man". Yes, the more women abandon their home the more broken families.
CFarrugia
Nov 25th 2009, 08:59
Giov de Martino
according to your argument, the less a woman goes out of the house the better. why not lock her in the house? with your argument you are reminding me of the very fundamentalist Muslims where women are not allowed in the street except if they are accompanied by a male, their husband or brother or cousin. then she does not have a chance to meet someone for sure. My generation of women who are in their thirties have studied at university, most of them have a masters degree and doctorate degree, do you suggest such a woman should sit at home? what about the father, is he not also responsible for bringing up his children?
CFarrugia
Nov 25th 2009, 08:52
@giov de martino
are you living in the middle ages?
how dare you imply that it is us women going to work which is leading to broken families?
if you think preventing a woman from working and keeping her at home, she will be a good wife and mum? Marriage faithfulness has nothing to do with working or not working, if a woman wants to cheat on her husband she can do it anytime, without having to go to work to meet someone there as you seem to be implying
Doris Muscat
Nov 25th 2009, 00:03
Yes more women in work most definitly and we all know why this is Yes........Less wages then men for doing the same job and maybe even better. Any comments welcomed from the male gender. Grazzi.
C Zammit
Nov 24th 2009, 22:13
Until 1981 Maltese women had their employment with the public sector and parastatal companies terminated when they got married. This was blatant sexual discrimination. Even when we were "allowed" to continue working after marriage, we stopped working as soon as we had our first child - no childcare facilities, one month maternity leave and no parental leave. Nowadays all obstacles have been removed and women can persue their career, even if they have children. This is as it should be.
However, I believe that today, in trying to be politically correct, we have gone all the way in the opposite direction, and women are now being bullied and brainwashed to continue working even if they have new-born babies. Whatever anyone thinks, there are women (even highly educated women) who prefer to stay at home and look after their children, instead of leaving their new-born with a childcare assistant. Not ALL women want to spend their day at work, away from their baby. Women should have the choice to stay at home or to work, and if they decide to stay at home, so be it. There is nothing wrong with ranking last in the EU female unemployment levels.
Moses Mula
Nov 24th 2009, 21:07
Malta, the country which always ranks last in the lists that matter the most. So much for progressive Malta.
Jesmond Micallef
Nov 24th 2009, 20:30
@GiovDeMartino : You did mention "More Broken families". I cannot understand your correlation with Women at work, simple. Indeed you have a right to your opinion, I respect that. But I cannot accept the "Horse Vision" attitude that you simply expressed in a short blant statement. Furthermore my comment has indeed alot to chew. I do not negate that, but again that is my own opinion.
GiovDeMartino@Jesmond Micallef
Nov 24th 2009, 20:15
You either did not understand my very simple sentence or else you wanted to humour the readers. Let me repeat in a diff way: The more women GO OUT TO WORK in factories, offices etc, the more broken families and abandoned chn we'll have. Tghid ftehemna? Jien inhoss, JIEN, li post il-mara mizzewga hi d-dar. Antikwat? Jista' jkun. Imma nahseb ghandi dritt ghall-opinjoni tieghi. Hux hekk?
Jesmond Micallef
Nov 24th 2009, 19:45
@GiovDeMartino Do you want to spark off a chain of comments here ? No problem, so here I go : Do you mean that women at home do not work ? Ok, then I sacrifice myself and join you but I do believe that Democracy starts at home. It is the perfect way to retain such an important principle, at the end of the day, the Family is a unit and many of these units form what is known as a Society. So here I go: May I suggest Time Clocks for women working at home, Break Definitions for women working at home, Occupational Health and Safety rules for women working at home, Collective agreements with Women working at Home Unions, Shift allowances, Annual Holiday leave, Holiday / National Feasts / Weekend work allowances, etc etc etc... Help me here...please !!!
GiovDeMartino
Nov 24th 2009, 18:20
More women in employment. More broken families.