BOOSTING WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN WORKFORCE
We need to encourage more women to join professions that suit their training and competency
THE government’s call to further enhance female participation in many spheres of the economy deserves much support. Females easily make up half the population — they should equally represent half the workforce too.
However, their participation rates in the workforce do not match their corresponding share in the population. This reflects much of our history and culture, relegating females to certain jobs, such as nursing and teaching.
Of course, over the years, their involvement in many occupations has improved remarkably, thanks to the democratisation of education. They are now in many professions, such as law, medicine, dentistry, media and accountancy, not to mention the many manufacturing-related jobs, especially electronics.
In a way, our terms of employment engagement may be quite discouraging to females. Once a female enters the workforce, she has to stay on throughout to enjoy all the facilities that the job offers. This is quite clear in the case of governmental pension scheme. Once one leaves, especially in the early years of one’s career, the pension is foregone.
This pattern explains the unimodal participation rates of the female labour force in the country in contrast to the pattern in many developed countries where the participation is bimodal in nature.
This is due to the practice of female workers entering the labour market in their early age, and later resigning to attend to their families. Once the children are grown up, the females re-enter the work force. This is what the phenomenon of bimodal participation rates in the labour force is all about. The system encourages it and it is healthy to the families, too.
Of course, we have undertaken several steps to improve this situation over the years — establishing crèche in workplaces and allowing longer maternity leave
are cases in point. In Telekom Malaysia, a new practice is being introduced, that is, allowing pregnant mothers to go back earlier, given the multiplicity of female functions at home; being a wife, a mother at the same time, and, most of the time, supervising in the kitchen too.
Now, we want more females to be at the helm of corporate management and governance. Female members of boards of listed companies should constitute at least 30 per cent of the total number. Given the need for diversity in corporate directorship mix, this expectation may take some time to be completely adhered to.
The board often looks for a few attributes in one appointment. A lady and a lawyer at the same time, or a lady and an accountant and of a particular ethnic group, (three attributes in one), so to speak. Nevertheless, this concern is being attended to.
It is, therefore, good for a woman aspiring to a directorship, for instance, to do related courses (finance, accounting, company law) in her spare time, so as to enhance her acceptability into the board.
Board diversity in terms of skills and training is important in order to help the company move forward in this highly competitive world. The political leadership has even suggested the need to increase female members in the political governance of the country, such as members of the Senate and legislative bodies, both at the federal and state levels.
This is a good proposal and can be implemented soon as the nation is planning for its next general election. Women, caring as they are, should be able to bring in much concern for good human values, such as concern for environmental sustainability, poverty eradication, housing, good workplace and ethics, to name a few. This is sometimes what is missing in policy and corporate discussion when much time is devoted to “bottom line” matters, such as Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation), Patami (profit after tax and minority interests), and ROI (return on investment).
In fact, Malaysia should be able to harness a much higher level of female participation in almost all branches of economic undertaking, given the higher level of attainment in education by female students and the availability of education facilities, including financing. Given also the advantages of information technology and better communication facilities, their social and geographical mobility should not be much of a problem any more.
Taking this concern further, with the shortage of labour in our economy and heavy reliance on foreign workers in many industries, we need to encourage more females to enter the workforce, especially in professions and vocations that suit their choice, training and competency.
In this regard, I think Islam does not discourage females from working in many professions so long as they are given due respect and honour in the workplace. Additionally, so long as there are an equal number of female consumers in the marketplace, either as patients, customers and others, society should see to it that there is a corresponding participation of females in related jobs and occupations needed by that industry.
Let us all see that our society and employment system are more supportive of this call by the prime minister.