Publication: Breaking Barriers: Toward Better Economic Opportunities for Women in Malaysia
Date
2019-09
ISSN
Published
2019-09
Author(s)
World Bank Group
Abstract
The promotion of economic opportunities
for women is one of the most promising avenues for
Malaysia's future development. Closing gaps between
men's and women's economic opportunities could
boost Malaysia's income per capita by 26.2 percent.
Against this backdrop, the report relies on a comprehensive
mixed-methods approach to investigate constraints on
improving women's economic opportunities. It finds that
Malaysia's female labor force participation rate has
risen significantly in recent years but is still low
compared to other countries in ASEAN. In addition, there are
wide gender gap in access to jobs that pay well and offer
benefits, social protection, and career prospects. Policy
directions for improving the economic opportunities for
women in Malaysia should include: (1) expand the
availability, quality and affordability of child and elder
care to enable more women to stay in the labor market and to
work in more productive jobs; (2) strengthen the protection
of informal workers and the productivity of workers and
business owners to harness women's full economic
potential; (3) pursue planned reforms of the legal
environment and strengthen the implementation, monitoring
and enforcement of laws and regulations, (4) improve support
for parents, in line with international legal norms and (5)
address gender norms and attitudes in education and among
the wider population.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank Group. 2019. Breaking Barriers: Toward Better Economic Opportunities for Women in Malaysia. The Malaysia Development Experience Series;. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32476 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”