There is a common perception that women have never had it so good and some frown at the idea that inequality between women and men persists in Malta today. The rising number of female graduates is often used by politicians to show us how far we have come and how much we have progressed. But have we really come so far that we can do away with groups that lobby for a more just and equitable society? I will try to answer this question by first focusing on the issue of work and family.

The right to work and to have a family is taken for granted by most. Yet, combining work with care still poses a lot of challenges to women. This is because we grant mothers one of the shortest periods of maternity leave. On average, the maternity leave across Europe is 23 weeks and we expect Maltese mothers to go back to full-time work after only 14 weeks of giving birth if they work with the private sector (the majority of women work with the private sector). If parents take urgent family leave to stay with a sick child we penalise them and deduct it from their holiday leave period and if they take parental leave, they get no pay.

We also have the lowest provision of childcare services for the under three and we have a disparity between the typical working day and the school opening hours. This causes a lot of problems and stress to working parents but, especially, to mothers, their extended family and to their employers. Some mothers do not find a solution to these problems.

With such conditions we should not be surprised that our female employment rate, at 38.6 per cent, is the lowest in Europe and the Total Fertility Rate (TFR- or average expected family size), at 1.4, is also among the lowest in Europe.

There is tangible evidence that countries registering the highest birth rates in Europe have high female employment rates and offer better work-life reconciliation packages. In France, for example, 81 per cent of women, aged between 25 and 49 are in gainful employment and, yet, France has one of the highest birth rates in Europe. French mothers enjoy generous maternity leave, tax credits for large families and other family-related benefits. On the other hand, in the Mediterranean countries including Malta, where family friendly measures are less favourable, the birth rate is decreasing in spite of the relatively low female employment rates. When women are forced to choose between having a child and keeping their work, this is not a real choice.

If we shift our attention from work to politics we find that men occupy more than 91 per cent of parliamentary seats in Malta. It seems that political parties in Malta are late in realising that women play an important part in elections. Facts show that parties that take women's concerns and preoccupations into account are more likely to increase their support. Likewise, the Maltese electorate has not realised the importance of having more women in politics, not for the sake of increasing their numbers but because women tend to widen the discussion and to place different matters on the agenda as they have different experiences to men. Women also have first-hand knowledge of the challenges that families face today and are in a good position to offer solutions for them.

When it comes to politics at European level, we did not manage to elect a woman to the European Parliament in the last round of elections four years ago. And on the issue of possible candidates for the European Court of Justice, the all-male candidate list presented in the past puts our country in a bad light. The time is ripe to remedy the situation by issuing a fresh call that would include capable and experienced women and men who could serve in this top post. As each year goes by, the choice is getting bigger not smaller.

So while acknowledging that much has been done in the last years, for which we are grateful, we have to continue to state facts and to show the public and our politicians that the disparities between women and men cause a democratic deficit and this is not cost neutral! If we are happy with the situation we need not do anything. If we are not, we need to do something about it.

The author chairs the Malta Confederation of Women's Organisations and is the coordinator of the gender and development diploma course at the University of Malta.