It was, as everyone knows, International Women’s Day on Friday, observed all over the world.

Women everywhere began the day by sending best wishes for the day to their women contacts on social media. In some offices and places of work, women employees were greeted with flowers, except for Eurostat, that spoiler.

In a release timed to coincide with the day, it issued statistics regarding the gender employment gap in different member states of the European Union.

It found, as our sister daily paper reported, that Malta’s gender employment gap between the ages of 20 and 64 has continued to narrow, but it still remains the highest in Europe, according to statistics published by Eurostat.

The statistics look at one of the European Union’s Sustainable Development Goals – Gender Equality which focuses on progress made in lessening gender-based violence and in fostering gender equality in education, employment and leadership positions.

Eurostat’s data shows that in Malta in 2017 there was a 24.1 per cent gap between genders – the highest in Europe. Malta was followed in the ranking by Italy (19.8 per cent) and Greece (19.7 per cent), while the EU average gap is listed as being 11.5 per cent.

At the other end of the spectrum, Baltic and Scandinavian countries take the top honours with the five countries having the smallest gap hailing from these regions. Lithuania performs best with a gap of just one per cent, followed by Finland (3.5 per cent), Sweden (four per cent), Latvia (4.3 per cent), and Denmark (6.5 per cent).

The 24.1 per cent gap represents the lowest figure that Malta’s gender employment gap has been since records started being kept in 2001. This gap has steadily shrunk from a peak of 48.8 per cent in 2001.

Indeed, while the figure remained in a similar ballpark up to 2004 (when it stood at 46.9 per cent), it has since gone down every year except between 2015 and 2016 – when the percentage remained identical.

Meanwhile, The Times reported that the increase in Malta’s minimum wage this year was the lowest when compared to those of all other European countries, as stated in a review by a European Union agency.

According to the fresh findings, while the majority of EU countries increased their minimum wage rates between this year and last year, the rate of increase varied significantly between different member states.

According to Eurofound, the hourly rate of Malta’s minimum wage went up from €4.25 last year, to €4.33 in 2019.

While Malta’s minimum wage was classified as “medium level”, alongside that of Portugal, Spain, Greece and Slovenia, the agency noted that the island’s increase was notably lower than the rest of these countries.

“Percentage increases were lowest in Malta (+1.9 per cent), followed by Portugal (+3.5 per cent) and Slovenia (+5.2 per cent per cent),” the agency pointed out, adding that both Spain and Greece had “exceptionally high changes” this year.

In Spain, the minimum wage increased by 22 per cent while in Greece it went up by 11 per cent.

Official EU data issued last month showed that the average minimum wage across the EU is €924 – a far cry from the €762 earned by minimum wage earners in Malta.

Bulgaria has the lowest gross minimum wage in the EU, at just €286, while Eastern European member states had minimum wages of between €400 and €600 a month.

These two Eurostat releases give the lie to the incessant drumming of “L-Aqwa zmien”. The proof of the pudding…

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