PUTRAJAYA – The Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI) scored 0.709, or 70.9%, last year, dropping slightly from the 0.711 registered in 2018, according to the Statistics on Women Empowerment in Selected Domains Malaysia 2020 report.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said based on the MGGI, Malaysia ranked 73rd globally in 2019, dropping 10 spots from the previous year.
“Within East Asia and the Pacific, Malaysia remained at sixth position as in 2018, where we were ahead of Thailand, Indonesia, China and Brunei. However, we were behind New Zealand, Australia and Singapore,” he said in a statement today.
MGGI identifies the gap between women and men across four sub-indices, namely economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and, political empowerment. A score of 1.0 (100%) indicates that equality between women and men has been achieved.
Uzir said women’s achievement surpassed men in the educational attainment sub-index with a score of 1.053, while the health and survival sub-index saw a score of 0.958, followed by economic participation and opportunity (0.717).
He said the labour force participation rate (LFPR) for women remained low at 55.6% in 2019 compared to developed countries such as Australia (72.5%) and Singapore (69.1%).
Generally, women’s LFPR in developed nations exceeds 60%, he said.
He said Malaysia’s score in political empowerment increased from 0.106 in 2018 to 0.108 last year, despite it being the lowest among the four sub-indices.
It is estimated that 15.7 million of the 32.5 million Malaysia population last year comprised women, he said.
“Women as heads of the household were estimated to spend RM3,666 a month, and the expenditure on food and beverages was RM690, or 18.8% of the total expenditure.” – Bernama, December 1, 2020
