Society is changing, and it is changing fast.

The problem is that we are not keeping up with these changes and there are risks that the gap between those who can live comfortably and others who cannot continues to widen. Last month, a forum on lone parents and their inclusion through employment was held specifically to address a situation that, based on statistics, is becoming more and more common as time goes by. It emerged that there are 6,000 families headed by lone parents, which is a rather large number considering the size of Malta. The thing is that this number is set to increase further in the coming years, considering the way that our society is developing. Most of these families are headed by women, single mothers who need all the support they can get to be able to take care of their family. As Family and Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina explained during the forum, the National Action Plan on Poverty and Social Exclusion had identified families with a single parent as being at risk of poverty.

This is largely because the income of these families is low. The increasing cost of living continues to put these people in greater difficulty to maintain themselves and their children, and therefore they find it hard to cope with life and to give their children what families with two parents do. It is already hard for families with young children to have a decent life with both parents earning an income; in the majority of cases having the father working full-time and the mother part-time. There are other families where the wife stays at home while the husband has a full-time job complemented by a part-time, and even here the situation is not easy. One can therefore imagine what the situation is like in families with a single parent who does not work but relies on social assistance. The forum served to identify the problems faced by these families and to seek solutions to the problems. The focus was on employment, and how single mothers should be encouraged to take up a job that would enable to earn money to help them and their children lead a more comfortable life. Education Minister Louis Galea, who is also responsible for employment, said that whereas in Europe 82 per cent of lone mothers were in employment, only 29 per cent of Maltese single mothers had a job.

This shows that the problem in Malta is acute, but such a result is not surprising. It is very often said that the number of women who are employed in Malta is very low when compared to other countries in the European Union and elsewhere. The government has often offered incentives to encourage more women to get a job, especially after they leave employment because of pregnancy, but Malta still lurks at the bottom in EU statistics for the sector. Research carried out by the Employment and Training Corporation suggests that the dependency of lone mothers on social benefits is tied to a number of factors such as low educational attainment, lack of childcare services and low motivation to work. These are all issues that are being tackled but it seems that little, if anything, has changed. The biggest problem seems to be that of motivation to work, as this is ultimately a personal matter and it is hard to convince someone who does not show an inclination to work to seek employment, irrespective of whether it is a woman or a man.

Of course, offering incentives to encourage single mothers to work, such as having childcare services which are reasonable in cost and make working worth it, could help. Most of all, during the formative years in schools, an extra effort should be made to identify talents students have – especially those who seem to have difficulty in learning academic subjects – and direct them towards areas that could prove useful for them once they finish school.