So now at least we have a more realistic picture of why very many Maltese women are not engaged, at least officially, in any paid work outside the home.

A significant percentage of households either have an elderly or disabled person living with them (17 per cent), and an even larger percentage cannot, even assuming they wanted to, go to work because they are themselves the childcarers.

In fact an amazing 53 per cent of those with child caring responsibilities left their child with the husband, wife, relative or partner while they went to work.

And please remember this is Malta where although the school day is often short (and so difficult to fit into regular job hours), children are seen waiting for their vans to go to school sometimes hours before school starts. Our school days often turn out to be quite long because of this crazy transport system we have, and where fewer and fewer children are being educated in their locality.

So it is clear. To work full time, or in any position of responsibility where one cannot always walk away from the job at a precise time, requires, first, that it is financially worthwhile to be working (and hence often not paying nannies) and second, an army of relatives, partners, in-laws and the like who actually prop up this working person in usually her but sometimes his career.

The figures showed that (as reported in TMID, 20 February) “family and childcare responsibilities are the first reason for economic inactivity among women aged between 45 and 64 years”, and perhaps interestingly, that few actually wanted things to change in this regard.

It seems people, and older Maltese women particularly, at least to date, want to be able to look after their children, or grandchildren, or in some cases an elderly relative. Very, often if there is one unmarried person in the household, this person is the one who looks after the more dependent older person in old age.

It seems the state owes Maltese women, and so called “economically inactive” Maltese women quite a bit, and that yes it would be possible to get more women into work, but would this cost be offset by the additional societal costs of either universal and free childcare, or more residential care for older people which is a phenomenal expense, and is growing daily?

So when the European Union sets targets for countries to get more women into the workforce, does it help the funding lacuna which will arise because childcare, or the care of older people, would have to be supported somehow?

Many of the women I know, who do work in more lucrative positions of responsibility, have either been blessed with parents who are the full time carers, drivers to extra lessons, there in our long summer holidays, or are well off enough or well paid enough to pay a full-time nanny to be there when children come home from school, prepare them a meal, help them get on with their homework and the thousand and one other things all mummies have to do every day.

This is obviously financially out of reach of most people in ordinary jobs, so essentially if you don’t have helpful relatives you can’t work easily at all. Children get sick, school times are erratic (half-terms, parents days, summer holidays which are longer than a term!) so it may be up to women, if they do want some financial and economic independence to find the solutions themselves.

One practice, which I know works well in the UK and in France too, is a system where a woman, who for whatever reason prefers to be home, looks after two to four other children while the parents are at work, collects and takes them to nursery etcetera.

This is not at all common here, and perhaps it hasn’t taken off because most Maltese young women are still lucky enough to have an eager army of youngish grandmas willing to help out. As these same twenty-something grow older they may not wish to, or indeed be able to be full-time carers for their own grandchildren, and by then something in our system will have to give.

Mind you, looking at the hedonistic lives of our young teens and early 20s girlies (and guys of course), you cannot imagine them making the same sacrifices for family and children that the current middle aged and younger middle aged are making now.

It’s a whole new generation growing up and bedding down in the streets of Paceville, and policy makers had better take notice. Gone are the scandalous days of the 18th century where Casanova is reputed to have bedded 122 women. This is no longer unusual behaviour in many kids, and the twenty-somethings who frequent the bars and clubs of Malta.

Once our girlies are becoming mini Casanovas too, the future for childcare and working mums will turn out to be a totally different ball game!