While gender quotas prove effective in most scenarios, it was up to Maltese youths to push for gender balance in Parliament, according to the head of the EU’s centre on gender equality.

Virginija Langbakk told the Times of Malta that a European Institute for Gender Equality (Eige) study on the upscaling of low-skilled women had flagged a challenge in Malta where a whole generation of women who had been expected to skip tertiary education and take care of their family, had missed out on reaching their full potential and as a result will be receiving low pensions.

But while that particular generation of women might not have been interested in joining political parties as a consequence of traditional expectations, it was time for the younger generation to bring about balance, the director of the Eige said.

Ms Langbakk was speaking to the Times of Malta during a European Parliament seminar on the occasion of International Women’s Day, where it was noted that the glass ceiling was also present at EU institutions, with women being nearly absent from roles above middle management.

Meanwhile, only 36 per cent of European Parliament members are women – up from 17 per cent 40 years ago. Finland tops the list with 77 per cent of its MEPs being women, while only one out of the six Estonian and Cypriot MEPs are female.

Malta currently shares fourth topmost place with Sweden, as half of its MEPs are women.

When the European Parliament elections were held in 2014, four out of the six elected Maltese MEPs were women, however, only 10 out of the 67 current national MPs are female, placing the island second-to-last in political representation by women in the EU.

The share of women in national parliaments in the EU28 is around 30 per cent.

Asked whether gender quotas could work in Malta, Ms Langbakk noted that there was no single answer to whether quotas were the best way to introduce balance. However, out of the nine EU member states that had introduced quotas, eight (except for Croatia) had seen an increase in the share of women in Parliament.

Nonetheless, quotas were an interim solution as they kicked off a discussion and forced decision makers and party leaders to start actively looking for alternatives.

So what would be the solution for Malta to create some balance?

Apart from party leaders and gatekeepers kicking off a discussion, the younger generations should be supporting women in politics, talking about women in politics, and participating in politics themselves, she said.