Vania Agius Tabone

This paper examines the persistence of gender inequality and the motherhood penalty in higher education institutions (HEIs), focusing on Malta within an international comparative perspective. Drawing on feminist institutionalism and institutional ethnography, it explores how formal family-friendly policies interact with cultural expectations and institutional norms to shape career outcomes for both academic and support staff. Comparative evidence demonstrates that while Nordic countries have mitigated the motherhood penalty through supportive policies and more egalitarian cultural norms, Anglo-Saxon and Central and Eastern European systems continue to reproduce significant inequalities due to the gendered uptake of flexible work arrangements, limited childcare provision, and persistent expectations surrounding maternal caregiving. The Maltese case illustrates how small-state and Southern European contexts reproduce and intensify these dynamics. Although policies such as flexible working arrangements and parental leave formally exist, their uptake remains highly gendered: men rarely utilise them, while women who do often experience stalled career progression and reduced opportunities for advancement. At the same time, the entrenched ideal of the “ideal academic” or “ideal worker,” characterised by uninterrupted availability and productivity, continues to marginalise caregivers. By extending the analysis to both academic and support staff, the paper demonstrates how occupational segregation and the devaluation of feminised labour sustain systemic inequalities across institutional structures. Crucially, the paper argues that Malta should not be viewed merely as another national example, but rather as an intensified small-state case that exposes the structural limitations of policy-led equality models. The motherhood penalty is shown to emerge not only from policy gaps, but also from institutional valuation systems that privilege uninterrupted, research-intensive career trajectories over relational, administrative, and care-oriented labour. Conceptually, the paper advances a model in which the motherhood penalty emerges through the interaction of three mutually reinforcing systems: policy design, cultural norms, and institutional valuation structures. It concludes that genuine gender equity in higher education requires not only policy reform, but also deeper cultural and institutional transformation capable of redefining academic success and challenging gendered assumptions surrounding care and productivity.