Gender Inequality In Malaysia
The posters which observers say are the epitome of the concept of gender inequality even caught the attention of the country s former law minister azalina othman who tweeted.
Gender inequality in malaysia. Gender equality centered in human rights is both a development goal on its own and a critical factor for achieving sustainable development. Malaysia ranked 106 in the world with a score of 0 666 where 1 00 indicates gender parity and 0 00 indicates the worst inequality. On average women in malaysia get paid 79 sen to a ringgit earned by men. It s proven that empowering women and girls helps economic growth and development.
It underlies one of the guiding principles of the 2030 agenda for development the concept of leaving no one behind. This is based on the average gender pay gap published in the salary and wages survey report 2016 released by the department of statistics malaysia but is gender wage gap a myth or does it really exist. Undp has made gender equality central to its work and we ve seen remarkable progress in the past 20 years. A gender pay gap is a contributing factor to lower representation of women along the pipeline and this remains a problem in malaysia where women degree holders on average get only 76 of what men get paid according to numbers released by the department of statistics in 2017.
We cannot afford to slide further in the gender gap report or slack in other initiatives. The findings of the world economic forum s most recent gender gap report for example tell us that gender equality can only be achieved in 200 years. The fight against gender inequality must go on especially in malaysia. If malaysia wishes to empower women identified as one of the nine target groups under the government s shared prosperity vision 2030 spv 2030 concrete steps such as introducing laws to stop gender discrimination in the workforce and providing accessible and affordable care services for children and the elderly have to be taken.
While malaysia scored a 985 for educational attainment girls still do not have equal economic opportunities or political empowerment. Perhaps what s most frustrating is that malaysia ranked 104 out of 144 countries indicating that gender inequality is still a very real issue in our country.