Malaysia Ranked 73rd Globally In Gender Gap Index 2019

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 1 (Bernama) -- Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI) scored 0.709 or 70.9 per cent in 2019, dropping slightly from 0.711 in 2018, according to the Statistics on Women Empowerment in Selected Domains, Malaysia, 2020. Commenting on the report, Chief Statistician Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said based on the MGGI, Malaysia was ranked 73rd globally in 2019, dropping10 places compared to 2018. "Within East Asia and the Pacific, Malaysia remained at sixth position as in 2018 where we were ahead of Thailand, Indonesia, China and Brunei. However, we were behind New Zealand, Australia and Singapore," he said in a statement Tuesday. MGGI identifies the gap between women and men across four sub-indices encompassing economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. A score of 1.0 (100 per cent) indicates that equality between women and men has been achieved. Mohd Uzir said women's achievement had surpassed men in the educational attainment sub-index with a score of 1.053, while the health and survival sub-index recorded a score of 0.958, followed by economic participation and opportunity (0.717).  He said the labour force participation rate (LFPR) for women was still low at 55.6 per cent in 2019  compared to other developed countries such as Australia (72.5 per cent) and Singapore (69.1 per cent). Generally, he said women’s LFPR for developed nation exceed 60 per cent. Mohd Uzir said Malaysia's score in political empowerment increased from 0.106 in 2018 to 0.108 in 2019, even though it remained the lowest among the four sub-indices, which showed women were still lagging behind men in ministerial positions, parliament and as state elected representatives. It was estimated that 15.7 million of Malaysia’s population were women out of a total of 32.5 million in 2019, he said. "Women as the head of household were estimated to spend RM3,666 a month and the expenditure on food and beverages was RM690 or 18.8 per cent of the total expenditure," said Mohd Uzir. -- BERNAMA