Each year on Women's Day, marked yesterday, we feel compelled to take stock of the situation of women in our country and each year we ask whether this day still holds any relevance.

Although gender equality has progressed in leaps and bounds in the last years, a quick look at the Equality Index issued by the World Economic Forum clearly indicates that things are not well enough to allow us to be complacent. Malta was ranked 89th out of 134 countries in this index, mainly because of the low economic participation of women in the labour market and because of the dismal number of women in politics. If this were an exam, we would have failed badly.

Does it really matter whether women are not active in the labour market? Does anyone care? What is being done to give real choices to women?

Facts still indicate that the vast majority of young Maltese women, in whom we have invested training and education, have to choose between work and having a child. This clearly means that they do not have a real choice. A real choice would mean being able to work and having children without having to choose between one and the other option. In Malta, it is still extremely difficult for women to be able to have the children they want while keeping their job. As a result, we have one of the lowest birth rates and lowest participation rates of women in the labour market across Europe.

Families living on the male breadwinner wage are finding it increasingly difficult to have more than one child and, likewise, dual-earner families know that the prevailing working conditions will not allow them to have more children while keeping their career. This is indeed a sad situation, which will have negative effects in the future. It will affect the sustainability of the welfare state and will mean fewer consumers and workers in the future.

Mothers are still getting a bad deal and pay a very high price for bearing children. Employers may avoid hiring them because they are an additional cost. Society often labels single mothers as parasites because they live on benefits. As a result, women end up poorer, often resorting to part-time or undeclared work, which gives them lower income and little or no social protection. Across Europe, women earn an average of 17.4 per cent less than men and a study by the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) in 2006 in Malta found that the wage gap amounts to over 23 per cent.

If we move from work to politics, the situation is also pathetic. Malta is the only country in the EU that did not elect a woman in the MEP elections last year. There were some excellent women candidates in all parties contesting and, yet, the glass ceiling and the old boys' network worked in favour of the incumbents, which, in their majority, were men.

There is still resistance to the idea of positive action or quotas. However, clear evidence from other countries shows that we will only be deluding ourselves if we think we can overcome these hurdles by doing nothing.

Men have a clear and consistent advantage in this race because they are the incumbents and there is very little precious space for new faces, including women.

So, while acknowledging that we have come a long way, the road is still crowded with visible and invisible barriers that hamper equality and limits real choices for women.

The author is chairman of the Malta Confederation of Women's Organisations.