Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri.
KUALA LUMPUR: Better female participation in the workforce will address the common stereotypes surrounding women workers, says Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri.
“That is why Putrajaya has goals to ensure there are more women in the workforce and top positions in companies,” she said.
She said while the government hopes to increase the female labour participation rate to 59% by 2025, figures from the Statistics Department showed that it only stood at 55.5% as of 2021, compared with 80.9% for men.
“The government aspires to increase the female labour participation rate to 59% by 2025. This is why the policy of ensuring women make up 30% of decision-making positions is consistently incorporated in our Malaysia (development) plans,” she said in her speech at the 2023 World Women Economic and Business Summit organised by KSI Strategic Institute for Asia Pacific yesterday.
“Why is this important? This sends a signal that women can make it to the top, challenging the three stereotypes – that women need to balance career and family commitments, the deep-rooted bias that men should have more power than women, and the belief that women are more emotional,” she said.
The goal of 59% women labour participation rate was previously targeted to be achieved by 2020 under the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020) by the former Barisan Nasional administration.
The labour force participation rate is an estimate of the active workforce, based on the number of people aged 16 to 64 who are employed or actively seeking employment.
Nancy said at the same time, women representation in top management in the public sector had reached 38.8%, earning Malaysia an international accolade for its best practice at the 2023 Global Summit of Women in Dubai earlier this month.
“While efforts are being undertaken by the government to protect women and ensure their fundamental rights, there are still systematic cultural barriers that need to be overcome,” she added.
Nancy said amendments to the Employment Act had introduced several changes to increase female participation in the workforce, such as the hike in paid maternity leave from 60 to 98 days, and the ban on terminating an employee who is pregnant or suffering from illnesses arising from pregnancy.
“There were also requirements for employers to always exhibit a notice to raise awareness on sexual harassment at the workplace because it is important to make women and men feel safe,” she said.
There were also amendments to the Social Welfare Organisation (Socso) to allow the disbursement of childcare grants equivalent to 80% of the insured salary value of workers to encourage women to get back into the workforce after maternity leave.
Nancy said around 130,000 women who returned to work after maternity leave would benefit from the grant, involving an allocation of RM290mil a year.
She said a monthly childcare fee subsidy of RM180 per child would be provided to civil servants while the monthly income limit of households eligible for the nursery fee subsidy had been raised from RM5,000 to RM7,000.
“The ongoing legislative reforms, policies and plans reflect the government’s commitment towards supporting women by building a society of equal opportunities,” added Nancy.
