Ending Gender Discrimination at Work and in Retirement
For decades, Maltese governments have congratulated themselves on a legal framework that says all the right things about gender equality, while women in Malta continue to face structural barriers in hiring, lower pay for the same work, slower career progression, and, in the case of older mothers, an outright discriminatory pension regime that still penalises them today.
Even the gender corrective mechanism PL and PN unanimously wrote into the Constitution in 2021 only operates when Parliament is composed of these major parties, neatly handing twelve extra seats to themselves while shutting every other woman out.
Momentum will close the gap between what the law promises, and what women actually experience, to make gender equality a legal reality in Malta’s workplaces and in its pension system.
Eliminate the pension contribution discrimination affecting mothers born before 1952 or between 1952 and 1961
The existing pension system discriminates against women born in specific years, penalising them in retirement for historical contribution rules that were never fair to begin with. Pre-1952 mothers are credited with zero years of contributions for raising their children. Mothers born between 1952 and 1982 are credited with only 2 years per child, and only post-1962 mothers receive 4 years per child. Momentum in Parliament will push to end this discrimination at both national and EU level, ensuring that all pensioners are treated equally regardless of when they were born.
Remove workplace prejudices and structural barriers that limit women’s career advancement with equal pay for equal work
The obstacles facing women in the workplace are not always visible, but they are real. Quiet patterns of who gets promoted, who gets the stretch assignment, who gets recommended for leadership: these add up to a glass ceiling that the law currently does little to break. Malta is still trailing behind on guidelines and implementation for the equal pay for equal work EU directives. Momentum in Parliament will push to actively address the culture and structural norms that hold women back from promotion, leadership, and advancement, including through stronger accountability requirements on employers.
Eliminate gender-based discrimination in hiring, promotion, and compensation
Women must be able to compete for every job, every promotion, and every pay increase on a level playing field. The principle is in the law, but the enforcement is not. Momentum in Parliament will push to strengthen the legal framework and the enforcement mechanisms that prohibit gender-based discrimination, ensuring that Malta’s workplaces are judged on what people can do, not who they are.
Momentum Executive Committee Member, Katya, Compagno “Malta has talked about gender equality for forty years, and yet a woman doing the same job as a man can still be paid less, passed over for promotion, and then, if she is old enough, watch her pension shrink because she raised children at the wrong time. Momentum’s three proposals turn equal pay, fair advancement, and fair pensions into hard law, with real enforcement behind them.”
There is hope, you can help!
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