Gender Gap Narrows, Pay Gap Remains – DOSM

Recently, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) released a report on the “Statistics on Women Empowerment In Selected Domains”. The report focuses on 11 key domains and issues. 

These domains include economic structures, participation in productive activities and access to resources; education; health and related services, public life and decision making; human rights of women and girls, social protection (special focus: population ageing); disaster risk reduction; peace and security; refugees; environment and climate change; and international migration.

Index reveals women surpass men in education, behind in political empowerment

In addition, it also highlights Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI) at the national and state levels. The MGGI identifies the gap between women and men across several factors such as workforce participation, education, etc. In 2022, the MGGI showed a score of 0.694, with a score of 1.0 indicating the equality of women and men has been achieved.

Interestingly enough, the MGGI showed a score of 1.067 under the education attainment sub-index, indicating that women have surpassed men in thigh area. The score for health and economic participation is 0.961 and 0.644 respectively. However, political empowerment only scored a measly 0.102, showing that women were still lagging behind men in the political arena.

According to the report, Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya had the highest score at 0.792 while Terengganu had the lowest score at 0.663, which is not that much lower than the national average. Johor, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Perlis, and Sarawak were also just below the national average.

For every RM100 received by men, women receive RM66.67

Overall, there are modest improvements in closing the gender gap. However, one area showed poor progress – the gender pay gap.

DOSM reported that female workers received a salary of RM66.67 for every RM100 salary received by male workers through the Opportunities and Economic Participation sub-index.

In total, the estimated income earned by female workers through the census was only RM42,080 per year while men earned RM63,117 per year.

Malaysia overall ranked 93rd globally out of 146 countries. Interestingly enough, Malaysia ranked higher than certain notable countries such as the Republic of Korea (0.680), China (0.678), and Japan (0.647).