One of the issues that has gained in importance has been the difference in pay between males and females for equal jobs. It is often referred to as the gender pay gap. Many employers claim it does not exist – however facts prove otherwise. Headline aggregate figures show it as well as data for specific jobs.

Data published by the National Statistics Office in the last Labour Force Survey shows that the average annual basic salary of women is 79 per cent that of men. In 2017 it was 83 per cent that of men. This gender pay gap is evident in all economic sectors as well as in all occupational groupings.

Other research suggests that the source of this gender pay gap is the so-called career break that many women have following maternity. In simple terms, women are penalised in terms of their income because they stop working for a while after they bear children.

Successive governments in Malta have sought to encourage women to return to work at the end of the statutory maternity leave. And up to a certain extent, these efforts have proved successful. Yet I would like to argue that we are looking at the issue from the wrong perspective.

We generally seem to accept the fact that because a woman stops working after she bears a child, it is justified that, once she gets back to work, she earns less than a man. This reasoning continues on the lines that a man remains in his job and progresses in his career and so it is a natural consequence that he earns more than a woman, because the woman would not have progressed in her career. This brings about the terminology – career break.

It is implicated that through motherhood, a woman does not develop personally – if anything she regresses

I disagree with this line of reasoning and I believe that employers need to look at things differently. Accepting the term ‘career break’ implies a clear dichotomy between one’s personal and working life and implies that we do not consider an employee, male or female, as one human person but as two distinct persons.

It also implicates that through the experience of motherhood, a woman does not in any way develop personally – if anything she regresses. If we believed that a woman, following the experience of motherhood, develops personally, then we would not create a gender pay gap as a result of the so-called career break.

The paradox in our thinking shows up even more when we consider as favourable aspects in one’s CV elements in one’s personal life, such as volunteering, but we would not consider motherhood as something favourable in a CV.

I strongly believe that this attitude – that women must choose between family commitments and having children on the one side and their career on the other side – must stop. It is an attitude based on a very narrow view of what makes a human person.

I strongly believe that as a result of giving birth and of motherhood, women develop further their skills and competences. Just to make myself clear, I am not in any way implying that a woman who does not have children is in any way less capable.

All I am trying to emphasise is that a woman who had a child, and subsequently became a mother, did not stop developing her skills and capabilities, as many employers seem to think. She is a better person for it, like any other person who goes through other life experiences.

Therefore we should stop considering a woman who stops working as a result of maternity, as having taken a career break, as in she has stopped developing as a person. She acquires new skills and competences and enhances what she already has. These skills and competences would include time management, empathy, leadership, decision making, being analytical and taking ownership.

We need to redefine the so-called career break. As someone rightly said, “Maternity is a Master”, at the same level as other Master’s programmes. If we were to look at it from this new perspective, we would have a more humane workplace.