In 2018, 32% of persons residing in Malta between the age of 18 and 64 reported care responsibilities, a report released on Tuesday by the National Statistics Office read.

The National Statistics Office issued a report titled ‘Reconciliation between work and family life’.

The report found that more than one fourth of persons between 18 and 64 years took care of children under 15 years of age (26.4%), 3.5% took care of ill, elderly or disabled relatives and 2.1% reported multi-generational care responsibilities. The remaining 68% did not have any care responsibilities.” The report also found that females had slightly more childcare responsibilities (41,701) than males (40,452).

On average, persons with childcare responsibilities were 39 years old while those with ill, elderly or disabled care responsibilities were 48 years old.

The NSO said that the majority of persons with care responsibilities were employed (78.2%), 20.4% were inactive and a further 1.4% were unemployed.

Females with care responsibilities worked on average 34.3 hours per week while males worked 42.2 hours per week - that is 8 hours more.

“Almost one in five females reduced their working time whereas 12.7% of males resorted to ways in which they could increase their income.”

The NSO also reported that one in every 3 employees with care responsibilities reported flexible working arrangements (32.8%).

In addition, the report read that a larger share of females (56.2%) had the possibility to vary the start and end of their working day when compared to their male counterpart (40.6%). “More females reported flexibility in organising their working time to take whole days off (41.1% females as opposed to 31.2% males).

With regards to teleworking arrangements, they were mostly used by females17.4% rather than males (11.4%).