Managing
a career, family responsibilities, and personal interests in a fast-paced
society is an increasingly challenging task, particularly for female workers,
but also for men. Workers are seeking to reconcile employment and caring
responsibilities, including, among others, parenthood, care for the elderly,
and illness or disability within the family unit.
Without
family-friendly measures and flexible working arrangements, such reconciliation
is often impossible for workers. Work arrangements should be sufficiently
flexible to enable workers of both sexes to undertake lifelong learning
activities and activities related to their further professional and personal
development, not necessarily directly related to the worker’s job.
Thus, achieving
balance between work and life does not only focus on domestic tasks and caring
for dependent relatives, but also extracurricular responsibilities or other
important life priorities.
EU
Directive Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers
Source: European
Commission
The
Directive of Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers’ was adopted on 13th
June 2019 to reinforce individual rights. The directive is to present a model
on how to affiliate social and economic priorities as businesses will attract
and withhold talents of both men and women.
The
EU Directive on Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers’ aims to achieve
equality between men and women pertaining to the opportunities of the labour
market and treatment at the place of work. This directive aims to improve families’
access to family leave and flexible work arrangement and must now be adopted by
Member States by August 2022.
The Work-Life Balance
Directive is to set a new or an advanced minimum standard to preserve and
extend prevailing rights including:
10 working days of Paternity leave;
At least 4 months of Parental leave per parent, out of which 2 months are non-transferable between parents;
5 working days of Carers’ leave per year;
The right to request Flexible Working Arrangements referring to reduced working hours, flexible working hours and flexibility on the place of work.
The
directive is valuable for all citizens as it will improve the working
conditions of employees, the labour market will be attracting more workers with
different responsibilities, while growth in the labour supply will enhance
competitiveness.
EU Directive Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers
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Areas
of Concern
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Definition
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Indicators
at an EU Level
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Malta’s
current situation
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Parental leave
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Leave
granted to either parent in order to care for a child.
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23% of men and 34% of women between the age
of 20-49 are not eligible for Parental leave.
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In
2016, 43% of women and 12% of men were ineligible for parental leave.
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Informal
Childcare and childcare services
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Provision of
public, private, individual or collective services to meet the needs of
parents and children.
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More women
(56.4%) than men (50.5%) are involved in the caring for or educating their
children or grandchildren at least several times a week of 18+.
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67% of women and
54% of men are involved in the caring for or educating their children or
grandchildren at least several times a week at the age of 18+.
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Informal care for older persons and persons with disabilities
and long – term care services
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Unpaid care provided
to older and dependent persons by a person with whom they have a social
relationship, such as a spouse, parent, child, other relative, neighbour,
friend or other non-kin.
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62% of women are informal carers for older
persons and persons with disabilities for at least several days a week or
daily.
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Most
informal carers of older persons and/or persons with disabilities in Malta
are women (69%). The shares of women and men involved in informal care of
older persons and/or people with disabilities several days a week or every
day are 19% and 9%.
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Transport
and infrastructure
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Access to
affordable and quality public infrastructure, such as care and educational
facilities, health services and transportation.
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On average, women
spend 39 minutes of commuting daily, while men spend 44 minutes daily.
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Men and women in
Malta approximately spend the same amount of time of commuting, amounting to
43-44 daily.
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Flexible Working Arrangements
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Organisation
of working time, part-time work, overtime and night work in a flexible way.
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57%
of women and 54% of men are not able to change their working time, mostly in
the public sector where employees have no control over their working time
(65% of women and 62% of men).
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Around
72% of both women and men are unable to change their working-time
arrangements. Access to flexible working arrangements is lower in Malta than
in the EU, where 57% of women and 54 % of men have no control over their working-time
arrangements.
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Lifelong
learning
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Formal and
informal learning opportunities throughout people's lives in order to foster
the continuous development and improvement of the knowledge and skills needed
for employment and personal fulfilment.
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Around 12% of
women and 10% of men between the age of 25-64 participate in lifelong
learning.
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Women (12%) are
more likely to participate in education than men (10%), irrespective of their
employment status. However, family responsibilities and work schedules act as
a barrier to education engagement for more women than men.
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