Najib should not mislead the general public as if there is no female-male participation gap in our country
Even though he is the Women, Family and Community Development Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has no ground to boast about the government's achievements in empowering women.
While 62% of students in our universities and 30 out of 62 High Court judges are women, the more glaring fact is that the labour force participation rate of Malaysian women is the lowest in East Asia.
Women account for half of the human resources in Malaysia, and in 2010, about 9 million or 67% of women were of working age. However, according to World Bank’s World Development Report 2012, among this group, only 46% were engaged in (or were looking for) any type of productive work. In contrast, our neighbouring countries like the Philippines and Indonesia have achieved 52% while other ASEAN countries like Cambodia and Lao PDR have achieved 77% and 82% respectively.
| Labour force participation rates | % |
| Lao PDR | 82 |
| Cambodia | 77 |
| Vietnam | 72 |
| Myanmar | 71 |
| Thailand | 70 |
| Brunei | 61 |
| Singapore | 60 |
| Indonesia | 52 |
| Philippines | 52 |
| Malaysia | 46 |
Source: Labour Force and Social Trends in ASEAN, 2008
Not only that, Malaysia also has the lowest representation of women in elected office in the East Asian region, barring Mongolia and Myammar (World Bank, 2012a).
| Representation of women in Parliament | % |
| Myanmar | 4.3 |
| Japan | 10.4 |
| Malaysia | 10.4 |
| Thailand | 13.3 |
| R. of Korea | 15.6 |
| Indonesia | 18 |
| World | 19.7 |
| Cambodia | 21.1 |
| Singapore | 22.2 |
| Vietnam | 24.4 |
| Lao PDR | 25 |
| Nordic Countries | 42 |
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011.
It also appears to have among the lowest levels of women entrepreneurs, according to a cross-section analysis of the World Bank’s Productivity and Investment Climate Surveys (PICS) and International Labour Organization data.
In fact, Najib has no moral standing to boast about empowering women, as he was the one who ‘robbed’ women leaders in the government of one of only two posts in the Cabinet. Throughout his term, Najib only appointed 2 women Ministers among his 30 Ministers. However when Shahrizat Abdul Jalil resigned, he took away one post for women leaders by his self-appointment as Women, Family and Community Development Minister.
While Najib has 6 Ministers in the PM’s Office, Malaysian women can’t even have one Minister who will look after their interests full-time?
Our government has set out an ambitious target to increase female labour force participation to 55% in 2015. Najib as the Prime Minister and Minister of Women, Family and Community Development should tell all Malaysians if we are on target instead of giving out selective information to mislead the general public as if there is no female-male participation gap in our country.
