Malaysia's gender gap improves, ranks 104 out of 144 countries globally

The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) has released The Statistics on Women Empowerment in Selected Domains, Malaysia, 2018 indicating an improvement in its gender gap in the past year.

The country scored 0.697 on the Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI) based on the population in 2017 - an improvement from 2016's score of 0.692 and indicating a gender gap of 0.303. A score of 1.0 would indicate no gender gap.

Overall, Malaysia scored 0.670 and ranks 104 out of 144 countries studied in the Global Gender Gap Report 2017, and eight out of 18 countries in East Asia and the Pacific. However, taking into account the MGGI, Malaysia's ranking improved to 70 out of 144 on the GGGI.

These statistics present gender-related indicators as a measurement to gender equality, and contain eight main domains: economic structure, participation in productive activities and access to resources; education; health and related services; public life and decision making; human rights of women and girls; social protection; disaster risk reduction, and peace and security.

The publication highlighted the following numbers on gender diversity in Malaysia's workforce in 2018:

• Labour force participation rate was 80.1% for men, 54.7% for women
• Out of RM100 salaries and wages earned by men, women received RM98.30
• 22.2% of legislators, senior officials and managers were women

For more information on Malaysia's gender diversity, check out the infographic below:

Photo / DOSM