The evolution of women in the Maltese labour market between 1960 and 2020

Abstract

Using the gender lens, this chapter charts the presence and evolution of women in the Maltese labour market across six decades between 1960 and 2020. Whilst doing so, it discusses the changing economic, social, ideological and political influences at play on women and work across this period. The work draws on two different sources of secondary data namely: unpublished records derived from engagement and termination forms for the period 1960 to 1990, and NSO Labour Force Survey data for the remaining years. The research shows that first three decades were marked with slow progress in a context of national political instability, a weak economy, state-induced artificial obstacles and social and religious mores which normalised the subordinated position of women in the Maltese labour market. During the 1990s, thanks to increasing awareness about women’s rights, the opening up of tertiary education for all, and the first measures to defamilise care started a small wave of change. The period between 2010 and 2020 saw the most rapid increases in female employment in a thriving economy faced with escalating property costs and consumerists values. Targeted ‘make work pay’ incentives, the tapering of benefits, and free childcare encouraged the low earning and inactive women to join or remain in the labour market. These and related incentives coupled with an increased presence of foreign female workers in Malta, bolstered the female participation rates in the last ten years.