Percentage of men employed almost double that of women

The Independent, 13 May 2010

The percentage of employed men aged between 25 and 54 is almost double that of women of the same age, with 89.3 per cent of men and just 45.6 per cent of women, Antoinette Caruana, said yesterday.

Ms Caruana, Human Resources manager for Farsons Group of Companies, was speaking during “The Roadmap for Equality after 2010”, a seminar organised by the Spanish Embassy.

Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said said that only 67 per cent of women with young children in the EU are in employment, compared with 92 per cent of men.

“67 per cent of women with young children in the EU are in employment, compared with 92 per cent of men.”

The Spanish Presidency, Spanish Ambassador Maria Isabel Vicandi said, has fought for equality and the eradication of violence against women. In fact they have supported the Plan for Equality 2010-2015 and will continue to fight against violence.

They have also supported two initiatives; that of the EU centre for monitoring domestic violence and the adoption of the European Protection Order, she said. Dr Said said this represented significant process.

Among other things, eradicating inequality would be a factor for economic growth, and not a cost as some people seem to think, she said. A good work-life balance depends on sharing of responsibilities, and a major challenge is encouraging men to take on more familial responsibilities.

Doris Sammut, president of the Malta Association of Women in Business, said that the younger generation was better; in that they share home and family responsibilities, plan important decisions together, develop the potential of both and reach goals which would be otherwise impossible with one wage.

Dr Said said women entrepreneurs represent only eight per cent of the female population. Women often face bigger problems in accessing finances in order to launch and expand their own businesses, he said.

The EU believes women’s entrepreneurial talents can boost European prosperity, he said, and has been and has been giving practical support to women wanting to set up their own business since the 1980s.

Anna Borg, from the Malta Confederation of Women’s Organisations, said the biggest hurdle is the assumptions many have that women are natural born carers who don’t mind being philanthropists all their life, whereas men only want to be breadwinners.

Social policies, she said, reflect these assumptions. The direction is clear, but if we want to get there it is another matter. Targets and deadlines are necessary, but a budget with an actual structure is also necessary.

There has to be commitment from the top to make it happen. A piecemeal approach is not enough, she said, but there has to be government, employees and employers’ commitment as well as change of mentalities at a personal level.

The most common reason for women not working, Ms Caruana said, is family responsibilities, with 47.3 per cent quoting this as a reason, quite a contrast from the only 1.4 per cent of men who do.

“47.3 per cent of women and 1.4 per cent of men don’t work due to family responsibilities.”

She said that in seven countries in the EU, in some areas women earn 20 per cent less than their male counterparts. In general however, Malta doesn’t suffer as badly from this gap in wages.

It is most common in the financial services, a relatively new sector. Dr Said said that in the last 10 years female workers have filled approximately three quarters of the millions of new jobs generated in Europe.

Despite the fact that girls do better than boys at school and women represent 59 per cent of university graduates in the whole of the European Union, and even at the University of Malta, on average European women still earn 17 per cent less than men. They remain a minority in political decision-making and senior management positions.

Women are still under represented in fields like architecture, engineering and the sciences, she said, and it is also the case that men tend to go on to postgraduate degrees more than women would.

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=105967