Free childcare is good... but then what?

The gap between employment rates for men and women in Malta is the widest in Europe, official data published yesterday shows. Figures published by the EU statistics agency Eurostat showed that while the employment rate for men aged between 20 and 64 stood at 83.1 per cent last year, the rate for their female counterparts was 55.5 per cent. Large differences between the rates for men and women were also noted in Italy, Greece, Romania and the Czech Republic. Labour Studies Centre director Anna Borg said the data served as proof that while the employment rate for women was on the rise, further effective measures to address the gender gap in the workforce were needed. “The growth in the employment rate for women is a positive one, but when you see that such a gap still exists, it is evident that the problem is very much still there and there are still not enough women in employment,” Dr Borg said. The gap also confirmed that measures to entice women to enter the workforce needed to be more holistic, Dr Borg continued, insisting that as employment rates for men continued to grow, women were still lagging behind. Pointing to the government’s initiative to provide free childcare to...