The hall of mirrors: what’s the matter with the family budget?

The way in which the Government and the Nationalist Party underwent a virtual makeover in a matter of a week is reminiscent of Arani Issa!

It is obvious they are trying to turn the page after rebels within the backbench led PN to lose a national referendum and then a series of clashes compelled the Prime Minister to call for a vote of confidence. As fatigue and internal disruption became public knowledge, the stylists and makeup artists stepped in to transform the incumbents' facade.

This week we have seen politically expedient themes being peddled in Parliament during the Budget speech and during the PN General Council. The political discourse employed aimed to make government look good for its age and to show it is sufficiently dynamic to win a fast approaching electoral race. Yet, the PN's effort to let its hair down and exhibit a lighter updated version of its former self, is just not enough. It also requires meaningful soul searching and evidence of drastic intervention to shed the baggage it accumulated along the years.

The document presented during the PN Council marks a sudden change of heart on divorce, gay couples and other liberal issues. But I was particularly intrigued with the Budget speech references to the role of women in the labour market and the so called family-friendly measures, which aimed to galvanise support among the middle class. Minister of Finance Tonio Fenech presented what was deemed to be a liberal manifesto for the family that also celebrated the advancement of women.

I always find it bemusing when the State takes credit for changes in the role of women in Maltese society, when in fact it has often dragged its feet to institute reform. In reality some of the changes we have experienced were the result of modernisation processes that were frequently tacitly, if not openly, resisted by the main institutions and their allies. Sociologist Anthony Giddens had once explained that social structure will change when people start to ignore the traditional roles, norms and values; when they stop reproducing them or when they replace them. This is clearly what happened in the case of Maltese women; more of us are working and playing a public role because we struggled to break with tradition (out of want or need) and because we learnt how to juggle between work and family without much support apart from that provided by the extended family.

While Maltese cultural values towards women's roles as housewives and mothers are fast changing there are now more women than men in higher education. Yet given the current structures of the labour market and the dearth of support services available, women cannot always balance their work with domestic and caring responsibilities. One report after another revealed that few women with families have flexible working arrangements and so many terminate their employment when they have children. Career breaks then contribute to the gender pay gap and often imply that women find it harder than men to move up the career ladder.

Throughout the years, in spite of pressures exerted by civil society and women's organisations, patriarchal institutions hardly lifted a finger to institute radical change. So when the minister now pays lip service to a "long-term policy concerning the labour market ... to incentivize more people, primarily women, to enter the labour market," we cynically sneer. The need to boost female participation in the Maltese Labour market was first mentioned in the 1973-1980 Development Plan for Malta, but 40 years later we still have one of the lowest rates in the whole of the EU. The state and the private sector were very slow to provide services that empower women to achieve a work-life balance. It is not surprising that most of the workers who opt for part-time work are women.

The Minister celebrated the fact that in ten years we registered an increase of just 8% (from 32.2-40.5%) in the participation of women in the formal labour market. This slow increase conceals the fact that Malta lags far behind the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 which aims to enhance competitiveness in the EU through better work opportunities for women. The EU aimed to increase women's employment to 60% by 2010; the Maltese National Action Plan aimed at a lower target of 40.7% and at the start of 2012 we barely reached this goal.

Breaking the façade

This year's budget's optimistic façade was brutally shattered by new tatistics which reveal how almost half of the working mothers are "drifters".

A study carried out by the University of Malta's Centre for Labour Studies has shown that most mothers working for the private sector drift in and out of employment in their difficult endeavour to balance work with family life.

Whereas 52% of the mothers with careers are employed with the public sector, most of those who drift are employed with the private sector. We need to remember that it is the private sector that is most resistant to the extension in maternity leave and other positive measures.

One can therefore understand the anxiety expressed by the Malta Confederation of Women's Organizations (MCWO) when it demanded a more solid commitment from government on the promise to increase maternity leave by two weeks in 2012. If government is shouldering the financial cost, this measure should be implemented in the shortest time frame possible without delays because of possible resistance by employers within MCESD.

While the minister was busy calculating reductions in income tax revenue that result from his family-friendly measures, the report published by the University of Malta evaluates the cost of the loss of potential working days by women and the figures are astounding: Overall, families lost "€18.5 million per year in household income" whereas the government lost €5.1 million a year from income tax and National Insurance contributions" the researchers said.

As government spent decades dragging its feet on measures to facilitate employment for women, we have also registered other negative consequences, including the sharp decline registered in Malta's crude birth rate where the total fertility rate decreased from 3.6 in 1960 to 1.4 in 2008. Now through the 'parental computation' in income tax payments, married couples with children will save between €150 and €840 yearly.

Some childless, middle-class, working couples were clearly pained by this measure: "They have kids, it's their choice. We didn't have kids, and it wasn't always our choice" - was one of the posts that struck me on Facebook. Well, now one cannot help but wonder whether at least Tonio Fenech's "parental computation" may eventually encourage the Maltese to make more babies.

The hall of mirrors of Maltese politics continues to be a labyrinth for those of us who wish to see beyond distortions and confusing interpretations of reality. Most parents, including many working mothers, wish to see a marked improvement in their life. We just hope they will not find out that within this maze, nothing is what it seems.