The gap between employment rates for men and women in Malta is the widest in Europe, official data published yesterday shows.

Figures published by the EU statistics agency Eurostat showed that while the employment rate for men aged between 20 and 64 stood at 83.1 per cent last year, the rate for their female counterparts was 55.5 per cent.

Large differences between the rates for men and women were also noted in Italy, Greece, Romania and the Czech Republic.

Labour Studies Centre director Anna Borg said the data served as proof that while the employment rate for women was on the rise, further effective measures to address the gender gap in the workforce were needed.

“The growth in the employment rate for women is a positive one, but when you see that such a gap still exists, it is evident that the problem is very much still there and there are still not enough women in employment,” Dr Borg said.

The gap also confirmed that measures to entice women to enter the workforce needed to be more holistic, Dr Borg continued, insisting that as employment rates for men continued to grow, women were still lagging behind.

Women are still pushed to choose between a job and motherhood

Pointing to the government’s initiative to provide free childcare to working mothers, one effort to encourage more women to enter the workforce, Dr Borg said that, while helpful, such measures were only effective short-term.

“Free childcare makes it easier for women to work when their children are still very young, but when they start going to school, the problem of who is to care for the children resurfaces, since most schools close their doors early in the afternoon.”

Dr Borg insisted that as soon as children start attending primary school, women often need to re-evaluate their working situations, as the systems that are currently in place still made it difficult for them to work while also caring for their children.

Dr Borg added that a holistic approach that took into consideration women’s roles as mothers was needed when implementing strategies to encourage more people to work. “The systems in place are still designed in such a way that, unfortunately, push women to choose between motherhood and a job, despite the family model of today requiring more than one breadwinner.

“This indicates that there are still plenty of hurdles that have yet to be addressed,” she went on.

Despite the gap, the figures also showed that Malta is now just 0.4 percentage points from reaching its Europe 2020 employment targets – something a quarter of all Member States have achieved.

Malta’s 2020 target is 70 per cent of its working age workforce in employment.