Marching on: Malaysia scored below average for women’s legal rights in the workplace but marked one of the best improvements globally, according to a World Bank study. —CHAN TAK KONG/The Star
WE always hear complaints that there are never enough people who want to work, but there is a potential solution staring at us in the face – women in the workforce.
Women – who make up about half of the world’s population – have officially been part of the workforce since the past few centuries but to this day, they remain an underrepresented and under-appreciated segment of the workforce.
The Women, Business and the Law (WBL) 2024 report recently released by the World Bank further drives home the point of the inequality women face in the workplace, despite their potential.
“Women have the power to turbocharge the sputtering global economy.
“Yet, all over the world, discriminatory laws and practices prevent women from working or starting businesses on an equal footing with men.
“Closing this gap could raise global gross domestic product by more than 20% – essentially doubling the global growth rate over the next decade - but reforms have slowed to a crawl,” says Indermit Gill, chief economist of the World Bank Group and senior vice-president for Development Economics.
According to the results of the global study, no country provided equal opportunities to women to enter the workforce, not even in the wealthiest economies.
The first part of the study, which measured eight indicators across 190 economies, found that women enjoy only two-thirds of the legal rights available to men.
The eight indicators measured are mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets and pension.
Unfortunately, Malaysia did not do so well in this part of the study, scoring only 60.6 out of 100 in the WBL 2024 index score.
The study has a second part which looks into three different scores concerning the countries’ legal framework, supportive framework and expert opinions in 10 indicators – the eight mentioned earlier as well as safety and childcare.
Malaysia only got a score of 47.5 and 40.8 for the legal framework and supportive framework respectively, but did considerably better for the expert opinions score at 81.3.
However, the news is not all bad for Malaysia when it comes to empowering women in the workplace.
Malaysia was among the countries which improved the most in the last year, being especially assertive in advancing legal equal opportunity reforms in pay, parental rights and workplace protections.
Malaysia also has relatively decent supportive framework to enforce legal rights for women in the country.
Lower than average
According to the report, Malaysia’s index score of 60.6 is significantly lower than the regional average which stands at 73.
Malaysia scored the lowest in the indicator measuring constraints related to marriage, with a score of only 40 but did better in the entrepreneurship and pension indicators, scoring 75 in both.
“To improve on the marriage indicator, Malaysia may wish to consider, for instance, allowing women to obtain a divorce in the same way as men, and giving women the same rights to remarry as men,” says the WBL 2024 report.
Similarly, Malaysia’s legal frameworks score of 47.5 is lower than the global average (64.2) and the East Asia and the Pacific regional average (57.8).
“There is room for improvement across all 10 indicators.
“As an example, one of the lowest scores for Malaysia is on the indicator measuring laws affecting women’s safety.
“To improve on the safety indicator, Malaysia may wish to consider putting in place legislation on domestic violence, introducing legislation on femicide, adopting comprehensive legislation on sexual harassment and introducing legislation on child marriage.”
Best improvement
Despite that, the WBL report acknowledged that Malaysia was among five economies that improved the most over the past year, recording a change in score of between 10 and 20 points.
The other four most improved economies were Jordan, Sierra Leone, Togo and Uzbekistan.
The study noted that Malaysia enacted four reforms affecting pay and parenthood, which helped pull up the country’s average score by 10.6 points this year.
Among the reforms are the amendment to the Employment Act 1955, which were passed in 2022 but only came into effect in January 2023.
The report highlighted the extension of paid maternity leave from 60 days to 98 days, the introduction of paid paternity leave, the prohibition of dismissing pregnant workers, the removal of restrictions on women’s employment in night work, among others.
“The long-overdue amendments aligns the legislation in Malaysia with internationally recognised labour standards, including several International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions and international practices such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,” says the report.
This year, the WBL report also looked into the implementation gap between legal reforms and the actual outcomes for women, resulting in the supportive framework score.
While Malaysia’s supportive framework score of 40.8 may seem low, the WBL report reveals that countries on average have established less than 40% of the systems needed for full implementation of the legal rights for women.
One example cited showed that 98 economies have enacted legislation mandating equal pay for women for work of equal value, but only 35 countries – fewer than one out of every five – have adopted pay-transparency measures or enforcement mechanisms to address the pay gap.
As such, Malaysia’s 40.8 supportive frameworks score is actually higher than the global average (39.5) and the East Asia and the Pacific regional average (33.9).
Malaysia even obtained a perfect score of 100 when it comes to supportive frameworks related to women entrepreneurs.
However, it is worth noting that Malaysia did abysmally in supportive frameworks for matters related to women in the workplace, parenthood and pension, scoring zero in all three.
On the contrary, Malaysia received exceptional points in the expert opinions score.
At 81.3, Malaysia’s expert opinions score is much higher than the global average (65.7) and the East Asia and the Pacific regional average (64.8).
Expert opinions on freedom of movement, women’s work after having children, women starting and running a business, women’s property and inheritance, and women’s pensions gave Malaysia a perfect score, boosting the country’s average.
These obstacles women face in joining and advancing in the workplace should be appropriately addressed by the countries,as the WBL 2024 report’s lead author Tea Trumbic says it is not only unfair to the women, but wasteful to the global economy.
“Increasing women’s economic participation is the key to amplifying their voices and shaping decisions that affect them directly. Countries simply cannot afford to sideline half of their population.”
