PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia is now ranked the 9th country with the most empowered women in Asia Pacific, ahead of Indonesia, China and Brunei based on the latest Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI) released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the average score for Malaysian women in the four sub-indexs measured, comprising economic activities, education, health care and political representation in 2016 was 0.692 - which is moving closer towards the scale of 1 set by the Global Gender Gap Index (GGI) developed by the World Economic Forum.
The MGGI is formulated based on the GGI, where Malaysia is currently ranked at 106th spot out of 144 countries surveyed on gender equality.
"It's our first collaboration with the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry in coming out with (more reliable) statistical data on women empowerment that everyone can refer to directly," Mohd Uzir said in a press conference for the launch of the statistic book on Women Empowerment In Selected Domains here.
He said the MGGI figures have put Malaysia in a better perspective in terms of gender equality.
Thanking the DOSM for taking a painstaking effort in compiling the data, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry's secretary general Datuk Suriani Ahmad said the stats will help her ministry in creating better policies and programmes to empower more women next year.
2018 has been declared as the year of women empowerment.
During the launch, Suriani also read out a speech by her minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim. In her speech text, Rohani said even though women contributed 54 per cent to the total labour force in the country, it is still lower than neighbouring countries like Singapore (66 per cent), Thailand (70 per cent), Cambodia (77.9 per cent) and Laos (81.2 per cent).
This is despite having 49.8 per cent of female undergraduates in Malaysian institutions of higher learning as compared to 37.8 per cent of male undergraduates, she said.
The minister also noted on the low participation of Malaysian women in politics, which stood at 10.8 per cent.
More efforts are also needed in combating sexual violence against women.
On a more positive note, the Malaysian government has achieved its target of having more than 30 per cent of women in top government posts. In 2016, there were 35.8 per cent women decision makers in government ministries and agencies.