One fourth of working women are highly skilled, non-manual workers, with more females obtaining a tertiary level of education than males, according to the National Statistics Office.

The 53,574 working women in the 15-64 age bracket represented 34 per cent of all employed persons.

This was an issue Education and Family Minister Dolores Cristina tackled in her message to mark International Women’s Day today, saying the mentality that women’s primary role was at home looking after the house and the family had to change. This mentality was prevalent among 85 per cent of the Maltese people. In addition, 68 per cent of the local population thought it was normal for men to do less housework than women.

“This is the culture and mentality we first need to overcome before we can start thinking about not celebrating Women’s Day,” Ms Cristina said.

Yet, she added, things had improved and the percentage of women working outside the home had increased by 11 per cent since 2003. It was also encouraging that more women than men were continuing to study after the age of 16.

Alternattiva Demokratika called on men to be more involved in caring roles such as the upbringing of children. “There are still many women who are being denied real opportunities to realise their potential, largely due to the fact they are still mainly responsible for childcare,” AD social affairs spokesman Angele Deguara said.

Malta’s social policy had still not taken this issue seriously enough, she said, urging the government to step up investment in social protection structures for women.

The Malta Confederation of Women’s Organisations said International Women’s Day was not just about commemorating women’s struggles and achievements in the field of social equality, social justice, peace and development. Rather, it was a day when women celebrated what they had done and evaluated what still had to be done by looking ahead.

It listed priority areas, like the extension of maternity leave, more childcare facilities, the elimination of all forms of violence against women and cohabitation rights as focus areas the confederation would continue to work on.

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