Encouraging female entrepreneurship

Abstract

Malta has the lowest female employment rate compared to the other 27 EU member states. However, the female labour market has been changing in the past years, where policies trying to attract more women in the market, as workers, employers or self-employed, have been put into place. According to the latest Population Census 2011 (NSO 2014), the 15+ female population totals 179,752, of which only 65,071 are considered as employed (including 141 women who are either unpaid family workers or members of producer’s cooperatives). A total of 4,444 females were seeking employment, while the remainder 110,237 were inactive. This means that only 36.2% of 15+ females were employed in 2011, with this increasing to 37.3% by the first quarter of 2014. The female employment rate (which considers the 15-64 age group) was 47.1% during Q1, 2014. Figure 1 shows the trend from 2004 to 2013 for Malta and EU28. This indicates that the increase is stronger in Malta, even if it remains relatively low when compared to the EU average, however, in the past few years it appears to be closing the gap since the EU average has remained somewhat stationary.