Female participation rate worrying – Prime Minister

Malta needs a national action plan to ensure both sexes share family responsibilities since men are still reluctant to take on the role, gender equality campaigner Angela Callus said yesterday.

Ms Callus, who promoted equality within the Nationalist Party in the 1970s, said the country had come a long way since those days when women only worked in only a few sectors.

Women always had the family responsibility and now they were given the added roles of working and participating in public life.

“Till today, men tend not to take on the family responsibility... they seem reluctant... although they take on the other two (work and public life)... The country has now reached a third stage... I call on the authorities to set up an action plan that ensures men and women share these three responsibilities,” Ms Callus said during a PN activity, in Sliema, that debated the role of women in society.

She echoed the words of Renee Laiviera, who chairs the Malta Confederation of Women’s Organisations, who last week called for a national plan on gender equality.

Speaking during the event, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said it worried him that the participation of women in the labour market was low where human resources were the main resource. Figures showed Malta had a 35 per cent female participation rate.

The Prime Minister said the country had a lot of competent women and he would like to see a stronger female presence in Parliament, in local councils and representing the social partners.

He said that, when drawing up any form of strategy, it was important to keep the family context as a priority.

Family Minister Dolores Cristina spoke about the measures taken to encourage women to work, including tax incentives and family friendly measures.

She agreed that lack of flexible working hours remained one of the biggest obstacles faced by women who tried to juggle work and family.

According to a recent EU study, only two per cent of company boards, whether public or private, have female directors. Malta ranked last in the EU where the average stood at 12 per cent.

The European Commission is now considering introducing compulsory female quotas in the composition of company boards. However, businesswomen in Malta said they did not agree with the introduction of such quotas, arguing that the solution lay in supporting women by improving child-minding facilities and addressing the gender pay-gap, among other things.

Women’s organisations, however, believe quotas can help encourage women to take on high-ranking roles and should serve as a temporary measure to this end.