They want us to have more children. But they don't want to extend maternity leave. The solution? The Kinder, Küche, Kirche model, later known as barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, maybe? But it seems that even stay-at-home women are not so keen on the kinder bit anymore. Times are hard and children are expensive. Malta has the second lowest birth rate in the European Union while we are also at the bottom of the list when it comes to women in gainful employment. Low productivity in all senses.
Malta's birth rate at 1.4 births per woman is way below the replacement rate of 2.1. This should have sounded alarm bells to the government. France was in the same situation some years ago#; they solved the problem by introducing incentives to entice women to have more children and their fertility rate is now at two children per woman. The participation rate of French women in the labour market is at 58 per cent while that of Maltese women stands at 35 per cent. Among the fiscal incentives for French parents is three years of paid parental leave with guaranteed job protection upon returning to the workforce.
The extension of maternity leave - in Malta's case from 14 weeks to 18 - was discussed in Brussels lately and some member states, including Malta, have shown their concern at how much this will cost. Evidently this proposal will be one of the casualties of the international economic downturn. Indeed, when workers are losing their jobs or working on three- or four-day-weeks, it might appear out of place to press for more maternity leave. It is also true, though, that this attitude sends the message that equality measures are there for the good times only and that governments are prepared to trade on the employment rights of women when the going gets tough. This not only jeopardises what has been achieved in the field of gender equality, it also compromises the economy since nurturing the talents of the whole workforce not only makes good business sense but facilitates the journey to economic recovery.
What's more, the need to seriously address Malta's low birth rate is becoming more urgent if seen in the context of a contracting labour market and the need to make social security sustainable. Is there a solution? Stay-at-home mums cannot afford (financially) to have more children while working mothers cannot afford the time. This is because the necessary structures to help balance work-life responsibilities are already weak and now it looks as if promised moves on flexible working, parental and maternity leave will be on hold, thanks to powerful corporate and government lobbying. We certainly have to find ways to address this problem and adopt explicitly pro-natalist policies, which will reduce the social and economic costs of bearing children.
How likely is this to happen? Not very. Even before we were speaking of a recession we knew that there were women losing their job simply because they were pregnant. For instance, a woman I know had agreed with her employer that she would return to work after she had her baby and work three days a week. When she had the baby she was informed by her boss that he had changed his mind and would only have her return to work full time. Effectively this meant that it was impossible for her to return to work and the company did not have to pay redundancy because it was the employee's "choice" to leave. This is but one example of how women experience pregnancy and maternity discrimination in spite of the fact that such discrimination is against the law. This lack of flexibility will increase prospective or new mother's worries about losing their job.
A report of research carried out by the British National Centre for Social Research on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions published last year concluded that maternity leave decisions are highly influenced by financial considerations and mothers in the lower income bracket took the shortest periods of leave. It is thus likely that in times of recession new mothers will be forced into more unpleasant bargaining about the amount of time spent with their babies. This also negatively influences the birth rate.
The government should be putting across the message that it will endeavour to create a stronger and more just economy post-recession in which women's skills and talents are put to best use. It needs to keep in mind the association between a woman's ability to contribute to economic upturn and growth and the need to determine her reproductive life. The signs we have had up to now are such that women are neither being encouraged towards gainful employment nor enticed to have more children. For a thriving economy, we must do both.
The author is a sociologist and Labour member of Parliament.