KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysian women earn lower salaries than men, and only a quarter of them hold positions of influence such as legislators, senior officials and managers, new figures from the Department of Statistics showed.
In the Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI) 2022 released today, the department said that for every RM100 earned as salaries or wages by men, women only earned RM66.67.
In the legislature, and as senior officials and managers, only 24.6% of such positions were filled by women, while men comprised 75.4%.
This is despite more women attaining education at all levels compared to males.
“In 2022, the gross enrolment rates for females in primary and secondary levels were 98.8% and 94.9%, respectively.
“At the tertiary level, women recorded 49.5% which outnumbered men (33.2%),” said Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin in a statement today.
Women and men were almost on par when it came to literacy rate, with women scoring 96.9% and men 97.5%.
The statistics for income earned and positions of influence held are under the sub-index of economic participation and opportunity, which also showed that only 55.8% of women participated in the labour force compared to 81.9% for men.
When compared against other Southeast Asian countries, female participation in the labour force in Malaysia for 2022 was lower than Vietnam (75.2%) and Singapore (73.2%).
The percentage of women who are professional and technical workers is also lower, at 40.7%, compared to 59.3% for men.
Another MGGI sub-index, on political empowerment, showed that women formed only 13.5% of representatives elected to Parliament, and only 17.9% held ministerial positions.
Political empowerment received the lowest score in the MGGI, at 0.102, which indicates the need for increased representation of women in politics, Uzir said.
A score with a value of 1.0 indicates that gender equality has been achieved.
Gender equality in the economic opportunities and participation sub-index scored 0.644, while equality in the health and well-being sub-index scored better, at 0.961.
Only the educational attainment sub-index achieved parity, with a score of 1.067.
The MGGI, which identifies the gap between women and men in these four sub-indices, recorded an average score of 0.694 overall for 2022, a marginal improvement from 2021’s score of 0.692
This placed Malaysia in 93rd spot out of 146 countries globally, Uzir said. – December 13, 2023