An overview of older workers given from time to time by the National Office of Statistics provides detailed evidence of under-utilisation of resources prevailing in Malta’s economy. It extracts information from the Labour Force Survey. The analysis looks at the segment of the population of working age which, at the time of the survey was aged between 50 and 61. That is the definition of ‘older workers’ for the purpose of such statistics.
An increased propensity of childcare units should be prioritised, among other things- Lino Spiteri
But it starts by reporting the average age of withdrawal from the labour market for those people who are currently in retirement. The finding is part of the backdrop to the unfolding discussion over the future of pensions in Malta.
Not only are people living longer, continuing drawing a State pension for more years than projected when the two-thirds pension scheme (since capped twice) was conceived. They are also leaving work three years before the prevailing retirement age of 61, adding pressure to the dependency ratio – those in retirement in relation to the gainfully occupied.
That – an average exit age of 58 – was in respect of men. The exit age of women stood at 54, resulting in an overall weighted average rate of 57.
The practice to promote early retirement schemes in persistent blatant contradiction to the proclaimed necessity to raise the pensionable age simply accentuates and aggravates an already strong underlying trend.
If the trend persists, also with a little help from the Government, over the next decade it will overlay the less than two-thirds of the age group who are employed.
Quite a while back, the NSO’s analysis captured in a table the ‘labour status of older people’. The table said that there were 61,037 people aged between 50 and 61 years – 30,038 men and 30,999 women.
Most of the men in the age group – 21,394, or 71.2 per cent – were self-employed or employees, and 773 (2.6 per cent) are unemployed. Those men who were inactive totalled just over a quarter (26.2 per cent), or 7,871.
In sharp contrast the proportion of women who were in self- or dependent-employment stood at 17.8 per cent (5,526 people). Another 129 – 0.4 per cent – were unemployed.
No fewer than 81.8 per cent of women, 25,344 in all, were inactive. The figures have changed somewhat since then, but not so much as to shift the underlying problems.
One is not suggesting that inactive women, commented upon in the recent Standard and Poor’s report on Malta, should be forced to work. Yet it is a matter of interest to surmise what idle talent there might be among so many women who are not in any way within the active economy, though the great majority of them will be anything at all but inactive in their daily life.
An indication is contained in another table, that which gave the ‘education level of older people’. A total of 9,061 – 29.2 per cent of the women in the age group – had a secondary education (one can presume that one should add ‘or higher’, to allow for those who went through tertiary education).
With a rising number and proportion of younger women in full- or part-time rising steadily the inactivity rate in the later years is likely to fall. The trend will shift. The disparity between men and women will diminish.
Whether that will be a good thing or not from a family and social point of view is not at all clear.
It is a fact, though, that it has been official policy for decades to try to increase the female activity rate, and that has been done with some – though not enough – success. With people set to live longer and the population to fall, that is becoming a rising a priority.
Rather than simply assert and stress the priority policymakers need to plan for it in a more focused manner, drawing guidelines also from the evidence and experience contained and calling for interpretation in the ‘older’ group. Tax incentives work, but they may not be enough.
An increased propensity of childcare units should be prioritised, among other things. In this regard, at least, both the larger political parties are saying the same thing.
In reality, given that the objective of a higher female participation rate is shared at the political level, it should attract a focus of how to achieve that objective, rather than making part of the clash of broadswords that is going on daily and will deafen us until March 9, when finally we cast our vote – unless we are so bored till then that we have chewed it away.
It might be mindless or in seeming bad taste to make bad jokes over such a serious thing as a general election. But truth is that this campaign, like that of 1987, has been too long.