Malta is lagging far behind other European countries when it comes to gender equality within the workforce, according to recent statistics released by Eurostat.

Malta recorded the lowest number of women working in knowledge-based high-tech services within the EU in 2019 and ranked fourth from bottom when it came to women occupying managerial positions in the last quarter of 2020.

Looking at the EU as a whole, while women accounted for less than half of all employed people (46 per cent), they outnumbered men when it came to employment in knowledge-intensive services (59 per cent) in 2019.

And the majority of countries within the bloc were in tune with this trend, with Lithuania and Latvia boasting the highest representation of women (67 per cent) in high-tech, high-skilled industries.

Malta and Luxembourg, on the other hand, placed bottom of the list with females making up only half (50 per cent) of the workforce in these services.

Looking at women’s take- up of managerial roles, Malta also ranked fourth last among the EU bloc in the last quarter of 2020, with just over a quarter of high-level posts taken up by women.

This figure reflected a trend across Europe, where women made up 34 per cent of the managerial workforce, and male managers outnumbered their female counterparts in every country.

Across Europe, women made up 34 per cent of the managerial workforce

Gender equality expert Anne Borg said the figures were not surprising given there was a lack of prioritising when it came to advancing gender parity within the country.

'Gender equality strategy lacking'

Apart from lacking a gender equality strategy, academics and activists were sadly having to divert their energy and attention to keeping the country from regressing, rather than working on strategies that could help close the gender gap, she said.

Borg explained that they had been focused on preventing the proposed prostitution reform “that would send the country backwards in terms of the message it would be sending to girls”.

The reform seeks to decriminalise both sex workers and buyers, sparking widespread opposition from NGOS and academics.

Malta placed 90th in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index in 2020, yet Borg pointed out that the country had not even started to tackle gender stereotypes within schools, to free girls and boys from being shackled to certain gender roles.

While traditionally male-dominated fields such as medicine had seen an increased uptake from female students, in areas like engineering and ICT, there was still very low female representation.

The same could be said about men, who were discouraged to take up roles such as carers due to certain entrenched ideas regarding gender roles, she explained.