Women continue to earn less than men in 2022

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite there being more women in colleges and universities, they only make RM66 for every RM100 that a man makes in Malaysia, according to the government’s latest statistics.

In its latest Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI), the Statistics Department found that on average, men earned an estimated income of RM63,117 while women only made RM42,080 in 2022.

The MGGI measures disparities between genders across four sub-indices, namely Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.

In terms of education, the gross enrolment rate for females was higher at all levels – 98.8% at primary school, 94.9% at secondary school level and 49.5% at tertiary institutions.

In comparison, the rate of enrolment for males was 98.6% at primary level, 92.1% at secondary level and 33.2% at tertiary level. The average Malaysian woman is also expected to live 4.9 years longer than a man, where the life expectancy for them stood at 76.4 years as compared to 71.5 years for males.

However, latest findings showed that women lagged behind in terms of labour force participation rate (55.8% vs 81.9%), and in the number of legislators, senior officials and managers (24.6% vs 75.4%).

Women were also still under-represented in Parliament at 13.5% of the total number of MPs and in ministerial positions at 17.9%.

Women were almost on par with men in terms of the total population of professional and technical workers at 40.7% vs 59.3%. Taken together, these measurements gave the MGGI a score of 0.694 or 69.4% in 2022, a 0.2% increase compared to 0.692 (69.2%) in 2021.

A score with a value of 1.0 (100%) indicates that gender equality has been achieved.

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr. Mohd Uzir Mahidin said three states recorded the highest MGGI scores, namely Putrajaya at 0.792, followed by Kuala Lumpur (0.767) and Labuan (0.736).

Eight states however recorded scores below the national equality level of 0.694 , namely Penang (0.693), Kedah (0.693), Sarawak (0.681), Pahang (0.679), Perlis (0.678), Negri Sembilan (0.674), Johor (0.670) and Terengganu (0.663).

“Based on the MGGI score for 2022, we are ranked 93rd out of 146 countries globally. At the same time, among East Asia and Pacific countries, Malaysia is ranked 11th in 2022.

“Malaysia leads Timor-Leste (0.693), Brunei Darussalam (0.693), South Korea (0.680), China (0.678), Vanuatu (0.678), Fiji (0.650), Myanmar (0.650) and Japan (0.647),” he said in a statement yesterday.