Żminijietna - Voice of the Left acknowledges that in our society women have come a long way but are still struggling to strike a balance between family and career and many women are resorting to working part-time in order to achieve this. Others are being employed on a definite contract and as temporary workers.

These new work practices are lowering wages and bringing forward inferior conditions of work. This surely is affecting women. This is also the result of neo liberal economic policies which push forward atypical precarious employment.

We believe that to address these problems, new measures should seek to motivate ways to sustain and create decent work to ensure that women have decent standard of living, equal access to training and re-skilling.

Żminijietna believes that regular employment on a ‘flexible or reduced hours’ basis, at worker’s discretion should be the way forward, as this will safeguard women’s employability and conditions.

Another concern is that the gender pay gap is persistently high and thus creates discrimination towards women. Women are also still under represented in technical employment, management and in the political field.

Żminijietna notes that there are other women who are not only not participating in the labour market, but have few opportunities in society and are at risk of living below the poverty line. These are single mothers who cannot afford child care centers, women with poor level of education, women with drug problems and others involved in crime or who have served a prison sentence.    

With regards to this, the State should empower these groups of women to continue with their education, so to seek jobs with decent conditions, provided that they also benefit from family friendly measures.

Mary Anne Zammit

Żminijietna