Sixty per cent of the students who are presently graduating from their University courses are women. This has been the trend for a number of years. And yet Malta is still at the bottom rung when it comes to the percentage of women who work.

It seems that, at a young age, women are willing to study and work but then often choose their family over their career. It is a question of culture. We are still traditional and conservative, and it takes us a long time to adapt to new models of society. Added to this, there is an inflexibility in the labour market that is not compatible with motherhood.

Although the numbers have gone up in recent years, and this largely thanks to family-friendly measures and tax incentives offered by the government, only just under 40% of women have a job.

The results of a study published last week show that although many women are willing to work, most of them stop working when they have their first child, and few of them return to work afterwards. Many opt just for a part-time job, at least until their children are old enough to take care of themselves.

What is strange is that, in spite of this, the fertility rate in Malta is declining rapidly. Usually, when more women stay at home, they have more children. But this is not happening in Malta, as the fertility rate has dropped to 1.4 children per woman. This is of great concern as it has been calculated that the Maltese population could decline by half within half a century.

It has been reported that the facilities offered for women who have children up to the age of three are still lacking, although it must be admitted that child care facilities are mushrooming. It could be that women decide to stay at home out of their own free will, or else lack enough confidence to leave their newly-born or toddler in the hands of others.

But there’s another thing that is keeping women away from taking up a job – and this is the short school hours and the short school year we have in Malta. Many women simply cannot take a job because they have to be home when their children return from school in the early afternoon (or even go to pick their children up from school themselves), and then have no one to take care of their children during the days when they have no school – and in Malta these amount to at least 18 working weeks.