Maritime lawyer Ann Fenech recently suggested that larger organisations should have nursery settings within their premises.
This would encourage more women to continue pursuing their career after having children.
Meanwhile Marisa Xuereb, president of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, said women are getting stuck in middle management because of a culture that expects people – both men and women - to work 50 to 60 hours a week to succeed.
Their two statements, made on the occasion of Women’s Day, highlight the disconnect between the ideal scenario and the reality on the ground.
As the cost-of-living spirals, it is no surprise that, in the majority of cases, once a couple has a child, the mother slows down to raise the baby while the father’s time gets sucked in by a culture that demands every waking hour in return for a decent salary and career progression.
Women still dedicate more time to their caring roles compared to men.
The writing is on the wall: according to Eurostat data Malta has the lowest fertility rate in Europe at 1.13 live births per woman – significantly lower than the EU average of 1.53 births per woman.
Demography expert Maya Miljanic Brinkworth said that whether this will change depends on the availability of work-life balance and family-friendly measures and their take-up by both men and women.
“Take-up by both men and women” – there lies the key. This is not just about supporting mothers, it’s about parents.
But here we have one of the biggest obstacles.
The old-school mentality is still ingrained under the skin of many: women, no matter how educated, often still feel they should be the ones taking on more of the caring duties while men still feel they ought to be the main breadwinners.
The result: women who feel they are falling behind on the career they studied and worked so hard for; exhausted men who feel they cannot dedicate enough time to their loved ones; couples who do not have the financial or emotional energy to have more than 1.13 children; a labour market that is losing out on female talent; and children who are growing up to model what they see at home.
Having a nursery at work would help with the logistics and make it easier for parents who just had a baby to get back into the work routine – so long as they take up the offer. Small businesses in the same locality could pool resources to offer a solution for mothers and fathers alike.
But that addresses a small part of the problem.
What happens when that baby grows to become of school age and finishes school at noon or 2.30pm? Will the van take the child to the office? Whose office? Does it have to be the mother’s?
The misalignment between work and school hours and employers’ demands to work long hours from the office, as flagged by Xuereb, need to be addressed.
But the hardest obstacle to surmount is the ingrained mentality that the woman has to give up career time and the man family time – a mentality that ultimately makes the woman less employable in the eyes of the employer with the rat-race mentality.
It all starts at the roots – childhood education.
Schools today are selling the dream to young girls: that they can become who they want and have a family and manage to do both.
But is that same dream being sold to boys? What about their time with their family?
Nurseries at work can help but only if the children being cared for in those nurseries, in childcare centres and in schools see adults around them sharing roles – hopefully in a society that values people’s well-being.