Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1161926
MATTHEW VELLA MALTESE parents get free childcare to allow more women to enter the job market, and the government wants quotas to push for more women into par- liament. But does the Maltese economy also suffer from labour market discrimination when it comes to women? One student of eco- nomics doesn't think so. Ayrton Zarb fired over 300 CVs to prospective employers, advertising vacancies on the newspapers and online for his Master's degree dissertation, and found that gender was not a statistically significant deter- minant. Malta has the widest gender gap in full-time employment among EU states, with the wid- est discrepancy found in finan- cial services and insurance. The CVs, designed in 'Eu- ropass' style, were designed identically for two fictitious 28 and 44-year old candidates, both male and female candi- dates, without a photo attached to the CVs, and without any applicant having suffered any unemployment spells. "Certain employers perceive unemploy- ment spells as a period where the candidate loses skills and becomes demotivated to work. The application of this assump- tion means that prime-aged workers (28 years) have less em- ployment experience (human capital) than those passing the peak of their career (44 years)," Zarb said in his study. A total of 330 résumés were sent in response to 165 em- ployment advertisements over the entire sample period. 180 respondents received a positive reply for an interview while 23 candidates were told not to at- tend the interview. The remain- ing 127 applicants were not giv- en any reply, whether positive or negative, leading the researcher to count such entries as a nega- tive call-back following the ex- piry or CV submission date. "The gender of the applicant had no influence on the can- didate's recruitment process," Zarb says – as well the combi- nation of age and gender, which he found to be non-significant. "This leads this analysis to conclude that young female workers – the most vulnerable category due to their maternal responsibilities – are not nega- tively discriminated against when compared to any other category of workers," Zarb said, saying his findings also converg- es with previous studies that employed his same methodol- ogy. However, the study did find that the 44-year-old candidates had a higher probability for a positive call-back for an inter- view than 28-year-olds, as well as a marginal discrimination against mature females (44) and young males (28). Zarb says his experiment shows that when there is strong economic growth, com- plemented by public policy proposals in favour of gender equality, the gender of the applicant is no longer a sig- nificant determinant for em- ployers in their recruitment process. Also, since the study took place at a time where demand for labour equals, and at times exceeds supply, both the gen- der and the age of the candi- date are no longer significant. "This phenomenon is espe- cially significant for the sur- veyed category where unem- ployment is substantially low amongst professionals and managers," Zarb said. But his second interpretation suggests that even though em- ployers are interviewing appli- cants of both genders, women are still losing out, as gender gap data collected by the European Commission shows. "When candidates of both genders with identical skills apply for the same vacancy, in most cases both fictitious appli- cants are called for an interview at the same time. However, the gender employment gap per- sists – which could be attribut- ed to discrimination happening at the hiring stage or on-the-job discrimination, an argument which was questioned by some scholars in the literature," Zarb says. "Employers might postpone the exercise of discrimination to a later stage," Zarb suggests, but also asks whether women do not apply for employment positions, especially managerial roles, due to household com- mitments. "The role of the primary child bearers in every family, as as- signed to them by society, to- gether with unequal split of do- mestic work, is leading females, some of whom are top gradu- ates, to drop out of the labour market. "Currently, individuals who are working on a part-time ba- sis are experiencing minimal difficulties to start working on a full-time basis. Therefore, the gap is mainly due to lack of rep- resentation by women who are currently inactive." Zarb says his study is the first of its kind to have applied a naturally-occurring field experi- ment to investigate whether age and gender of job candidates have an effect on both the call- back rate and the duration of the call to attend the interview. A contrasting study, set during a more stable economic climate or during a slowdown, could provide an interesting follow- up. "If these studies discover gender discrimination then the proposition that the degree for gender discrimination varies with the economic cycle is veri- fied," Zarb suggests, who hopes these kind of studies could be applied to assess other forms of negative discrimination against minority groups, including Maltese versus foreign work- ers, heterosexual versus homo- sexual workers, or workers with disability versus non-disabled workers. 8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 SEPTEMBER 2019 NEWS Open Day – Għammieri Government Experimental Farm Marsa The Strategic Communications Unit on behalf of the Ministry for the Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change would like to invite vendors who own vintage food trucks selling international food, to participate in this event which will be held at Għammieri Marsa on Sunday the 29th of September 2019 from 09:00 to 15:30. Those interested are to contact the Strategic Communications Unit on 2292 6202 or via email on infoscu.mesdc@gov.mt by the 11th of September 2019. Economics student fired off over 300 resumés from fictitious male and female candidates to test response of employers Gender and age no barriers for job seekers Young female workers – the most vulnerable category due to their maternal responsibilities – are not negatively discriminated against when compared to any other category of workers