By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, Sept 2: Making formal employment more accessible and sustainable for women could be key to narrowing Malaysia’s gender gap in labour-force participation, says Minister for Women, Early Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.
In a TVS news report, she said the apparent gap could partly be attributed to women working in the informal sector, which is often difficult to capture in official labour statistics.
According to Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) data, the female labour force participation rate in Sarawak stood at 52.7 per cent in 2024, compared with 85.4 per cent for men.
“We feel that many women who work in the informal sector are not included in those statistics. That is why the figures seem to show that the gap in women’s participation in the workforce compared with men is so wide,” she said at the launch of Sarawak Women@Work for the Samarahan Division at the Sarawak Farmers’ Organisation Hall here today.
Fatimah said informal work included small-scale businesses and caregiving, such as looking after neighbours’ children, which may not be reflected in formal employment figures.
“They are in fact working, but because their work falls outside the formal sector, it is not reflected in the statistics,” she said.
The Sarawak Women@Work initiative is among the State government’s efforts to increase women’s participation in the workforce while expanding access to economic opportunities, skills development and entrepreneurship.
She also highlighted assistance for women heads of households (KIRWAS), particularly those requiring direct support.
Under the programme, 15 KIRWAS recipients received RM1,000 each, bringing the total number of recipients to 274 to date.
Beyond financial assistance, she said childcare support also required attention as it was an important factor in enabling women to remain in the workforce. — DayakDaily
