A Swedish academic urged policymakers not to force women to choose between becoming a mother and becoming a lawyer or a teacher.

Åsa Löfström, from Umeå University in Sweden, said policymakers had to assure women they could take a year off work to have children and then return to their job without being punished.

Ms Löfström was speaking at a seminar about female employment and economic growth at the Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana, yesterday.

In Malta, women who wanted to have children returned to work a decade or two later.

This meant that not only did they return at a “discriminated age” but they also had to retrain, she added.

“And the belief that women who stay at home have loads of children while those that work have masculine behaviour and no kids are old wives’ tales. It is absolutely the other way round,” she said.

In her presentation at the seminar organised by the Swedish Embassy, Ms Löfström insisted that female participation in the labour market would ease poverty risks in the case of divorce or if the spouse died, among others.

A democratic society needed both genders’ knowledge and experiences. In Sweden, she added, there was not a huge difference between gender roles and parents of children who were younger than eight years could enjoy reduced working hours.

But while the male employment rate was fairly stable across Europe, there was a huge difference when it came to female participation. Malta has one of the largest gaps between male and female participation.

On the other hand, according to the European Commission, in 2009, Malta had the second narrowest gender pay gap in the EU.

Family Minister Chris Said pointed out that Malta’s female participation in the labour market was increasing steadily and rose from 33.3 per cent in 2006 to 43.6 per cent this year.

Both genders’ contribution to the labour market not only boosted economic development but also enhanced social inclusion and combated poverty, he added.