Businesses still not breastfeed friendly

Employers should have a more flexible approach towards working hours to allow their staff to better balance their time between the office and their family’s needs, Malta Employers’ Association director Joseph ­Farrugia said.

Men were highly supportive during pregnancy... however, things changed after the woman gave birth

Research carried out by the association, he said, showed employers were upholding some 85 per cent of requests for family-friendly measures. However, there was room for improvement and employers had to move away from the rigid nine-to-five day and be more flexible.

Mr Farrugia was speaking during a conference entitled Work-Family Balance and Parenting. The conference brought together unions, employer and employee representatives and other organisations to debate the issue of maintaining a work-life balance in today’s busy world.

A recent study, published by flexible workplace provider Regus, showed that the majority of Maltese employees worked well over eight hours a day, with two in every five regularly taking work home.

The conference covered several issues ranging from flexible working hours and conditions to the sharing of household and parental responsibilities.

Rita Borg Xuereb, head of the University’s Midwifery Department, gave an overview of her PhD research that looked into work-family balance, among other things.

As part of her research, that involved interviews with 221 couples between 2005 and 2008, she found that men were highly supportive during pregnancy, almost sharing household tasks equally. However, things changed after the woman gave birth when the support decreased.

“Nevertheless, Maltese men have moved away from the completely traditional division of household tasks and are more supportive with regard to household tasks but do not share equally as one would expect in a dual earner household,” Dr Borg Xuereb said. She found that women still took on the load of household and parental responsibilities even if they worked.

This highlighted the need to work on gender stereotyping and the need for equal sharing of parental responsibilities between both genders.

Jean-Pierre Farrugia, the Nationalist MP who chairs the Parliamentary Committee on Family Affairs, raised the issue of maternity leave, saying that last year in the public sector, 581 mothers benefited from the 14-week period allowed.

Speaking before it was revealed by The Sunday Times yesterday that this was to be increased to 20 weeks in today’s budget, he noted that Malta and the UK have the lowest full-rate paid maternity and paternity leave in the EU in terms of the number of weeks.

Edwin Balzan, from the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin, spoke about the need to have a national policy aimed at strengthening the family. He stressed on the importance of introducing more remote working opportunities that allowed parents to work from home.

Louise Bugeja, from Parent Craft, a service offered to expectant parents at Mater Dei Hospital, said businesses were still not “breastfeeding-friendly” and did not allow employees time to breastfeed their baby.

Over recent years, he said, the government introduced various measures such as flexitime and tax incentives to encourage mothers to work.

The conference, held at the Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana, was organised by the Malta Unborn Child Movement, the Midwifery Department, the National Council of Women and the Swedish Embassy in Malta.