The Labour Market of Schooling: Maltese girls in education and economic planning

ABSTRACT

This article uses the case of Maltese girls and women to examine the relationship between schooling and the economy. It is clear that not only have education and economic planners sought to strengthen the links between school and work in planning for different courses for children of different sexes, but also that the allocation of pupils to subjects has in itself worked as a labour market. Interestingly, private schools have also responded to their interpretations of labour market demand in producing feminised choices for girls. Some Maltese girls do achieve well, compared both to Maltese boys and their European counterparts. This is largely due to a combination of single‐sex and selective secondary education. Nevertheless, these same girls continue to have lower and feminised occupational aspirations which mirror the job opportunities in the labour market. Others are incapacitated by their schooling and have until recently been channelled into the labour intensive jobs on which Malta's economy depended in the first phase of industrialisation in the 1960s and 1970s. Of late it seems as if rising educational standards and social awareness (propagated by women's organisations) have led to reluctance on the part of these girls and women to participate in the same way in the workforce. With struggle, the needs of patriarchy and capitalism will not always be perfectly served.