Malta spends more of its social protection budget on pensions than the EU average, Clyde Caruana, a statistician at the National Statistics Office, said this morning.

Speaking during the publication of an NSO comparative survey, he said that the most significant changes in expenditure on social protection between 2004 and 2008 were in spending on old age and survivors' (widows) pensions. Malta in 2008 compared to 2004 paid €74.4 million more on the two-thirds pensions, nearly €14 million more on retirement pension, nearly €10 million more on survivors' pension and €1.1 million less on invalidity pension.

Malta pays slightly more than €3,000 per capita in social protection benefits, which is around half the EU average. but this comparison is misleading because these represented gross, not net benefits, Mr Caruana said.

He said that between 2005 and 2007 growth in social protection expenditure in Malta was greater than the EU average with an increase of just 12 per cent compared to an increase of 8 per cent in the EU.

In Malta in 2007, 52.4 per cent of total expenditure on social protection went towards old age and survivors' pensions, close to 30 per cent on sickness, health and family, nearly six per cent on children's allowance, 6.3 per cent on disability allowances, 2.8 per cent on unemployment benefits, 1.3 per cent on housing and 2 per cent on social exclusion.

When compared to the EU, Malta spends more than the EU average on pensions (46.2 per cent in EU), minimally more on sickness, health and family, and substantially less than the EU average on children and disability (8% in the EU average).

Malta also spends less on unemployment but more to help those facing social exclusion.