Increased female participation contributes to improved economic performance

The increased participation of women in the labour market led to a substantial improvement in Malta's economic performance, according to a credit rating report by Standard & Poor's.

Welcoming the report, social dialogue minister Helena Dalli said that the government had invested greatly in the education and training of women but that the investment had not given so many results in the past.

"One of the main issues this government wished to address was the participation of women and making our investments more worthwhile," she said.

Dalli said that the country needed women both to become mothers and to participate in the workforce.

"This government's new measures managed to increase free childcare services and this has naturally helped the change," she said listing free childcare centres, breakfast clubs and Klabb 3-16 among other positive contributors.

She added that there were more measures of the sort in the pipeline and that Malta currently has amongst the lowest gender pay gaps in the EU.

She also mentioned the upcoming Maternity Fund which aimed to remove the burden of maternity pays from employers. All employers will contribute to this fund, which ultimately means that employing men or women will not bear any difference to individual employers.

National Commissioner for the Promotion of Equality Renee Laiviera said that Malta had been criticised even internationally due to the country's position towards women in the past.

"The breakfast clubs have also helped women to get back into the workforce," she said looking forward to the opening of more Klabb 3-16 premises around the island.

She explained that women were contributing to the economy and that they could also be more sure about their futures and pensions through so many beneficial measures.

"The NCPE is receiving a lot of applications for its Equality Mark, and it already has some 60 companies with 18,000 employees bearing the Equality mark."

Permanent Secretary Joseph Camilleri added that new measures also promised the safeguarding of women's rights.

He added that these measures were altogether leading to very positive developments for women at the workplace.

"We hope that these measures will also be adopted by the private sector, and while we are happy with these results, we are aware we cannot and should not rest on our laurels," he said.