Unnoticed work: According to a recent report, 62.1% of Malaysian women outside the labour force cite household chores and family responsibilities as the primary reason for not working. — 123rf
WE are now barrelling towards the 2030 deadline set for the world to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – there are only five years left to achieve the 17 targets. However, as of last year, the world is severely off track, according to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal Report 2024.
Still, things are better closer to home, with UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) president Prof Jeffrey D. Sachs describing Asean as a “success region” broadly. Last September, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim also revealed that Malaysia has achieved 43% of its SDGs, far surpassing the global average of 17%.
Even so, five years is not a lot of time to hit all targets, with certain areas posing particularly difficult hurdles to overcome. As Sachs conceded at the recent Asean Workshop on Sustainability Development (AWSD) 2025 where he was a panel speaker, despite Malaysia’s relative success in economic development, there are some areas where the country is underperforming.
“When we rate the SDG progress, Malaysia is middle of the pack, basically. It’s not at the top end where you would expect it,” he says.
Women do the care work
One of the reasons for that is SDG Five, which targets gender equality and the proportion of women in policymaking positions.
“Malaysia shows up with not a very high score on gender equality,” Sachs noted at the workshop, which was organised by SDSN Asia at Sunway University.
Concurring, National Council of Women’s Organisations president Emerita Prof Tan Sri Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan points out that while Malaysia has made significant advancements in gender equality in health and education, “all these achievements are not translated into economic opportunities or benefits”.
Achieving gender equality is not just about checking SDG boxes, it has to be mutually beneficial for women as well as the country’s economy, explains Dr Sharifah, a fellow panel speaker at the AWSD.
Malaysia currently has a female labour force participation rate of around 56% but if we can raise it to 60%, it is estimated that this will increase the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 8%.
According to a Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) report last October, Malaysian women’s educational attainment has improved and is on par with men, comprising 52% of those with tertiary education. However, as KRI’s Gender Gap in the World of Work: Status and Progress 2024 report shows, women represent only 37.7% of the labour force. In terms of skilled jobs, women represent half of professionals (50.1%) but remain underrepresented in key leadership positions as managers (25.4%) and technicians and associate professionals (29%).
So if it’s not a lack of education that is keeping women out of the workforce and leadership positions, what is?
Dr Sharifah says one of the major reasons is how we as a society view care work.
“Care has been seen as a woman’s job. It is not a distributed duty. The woman, even if she works, she has to take on care responsibilities when she goes home.”
KRI also highlighted care responsibilities as a reason: Women are performing five times more unpaid household care work than men. The report says, from cleaning and caregiving to meal preparation and more, these “unseen” tasks are crucial to daily lives but remain excluded from traditional economic measures.
“Social norms influence gender outcomes, including economic participation. Traditional gender roles persist where men are seen as the primary breadwinners and women are expected to be the caregivers, which leads to gender inequality.
“These long-standing norms can limit women’s career aspirations and opportunities... 62.1% of women outside the labour force cite household chores and family responsibilities as the primary reason for not working,” Puteri Marjan Megat Muzafar, the report’s author and KRI research associate, was quoted as saying.
What needs to be done is to redistribute the responsibility of care work, says Dr Sharifah.
“We really need to look at how we can address this and we need a resilient, sustainable and functioning care system because an inefficient care system is the one that’s keeping women out of the workforce,” she says.
She moots regulatory and digital reforms for the caregiving industry as well as better data tracking in the industry for more informed policymaking.
There is also an Asean framework for the care economy, and Dr Sharifah says countries need to start translating it into action.
For Sachs, the answer to what’s deterring women from joining the workforce is much simpler: men.
“Because if the men are writing all the laws, you’re not going to get the care economy written exactly the way that would be conducive,” he says.
More than a list of nice things
Sachs says the other area where Malaysia tends to score lower than the average is the environmental side.
“While we’ve had very good discussions on cleaning up the environment and the energy system and so forth, the actual progress on the ground is not present yet,” says Sachs.
Asean secretary-general Dr Kao Kim Hourn readily acknowledges that the environmental challenges the region is facing in achieving the SDGs are daunting.
“While Asean’s population growth has moderated, our urban centres are projected to increase by 1.5 times by 2050.
“Our forest coverage has declined to 46%, while climate impacts threaten to push 2.5 million additional people into poverty by 2030.
“Despite ongoing challenges, Asean’s foundational strengths position us uniquely for the future,” he says.
Among Asean’s strengths are a demographic dividend, natural resource abundance, and strategic location, Kao points out.
Asean is also set to adopt the Asean Community Vision 2045 and its accompanying strategic plans under Malaysia’s chairmanship this year.
“The principles embodied in the vision will guide us towards a more sustainable and equitable future,” says Kao.
Kao also says the grouping has decided to pursue the Asean Power Grid, to ensure energy surpluses can be channelled to other parts of Asean, as part of the region’s efforts to address rising energy demands.
Meanwhile, Sachs says there is often a perception that economic growth has to be traded off for environmental protection.
But China is a great example that one can drive economic growth with green industries, he says.
“The idea that either we grow or we protect the environment, this is not the right way to look at any of these issues.
“The sustainable development goals are not just a list of nice things to do. They are a list of things that we really need to do in the sense of our futures depending on it,” says Sachs.