Women need support to stay at work

TODAY our nation celebrates National Women’s Day with the theme “Women: Changing The Global Economy”.

This theme resonates with the current trend of higher enrolment of women in tertiary education. Education has unlocked our women’s potential and created a talent pool of gifted and educated individuals brimming with confidence and belief that they can be game changers.

To be potent game changers, these women must be leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs in the business, scientific and technological fields. Unfortunately, these are fields where there is gross under-representation of women.

The greatest challenge now is for women “to take a walk on the road less travelled” by venturing into a field where few of them dare to venture. This is where their road to empowerment will really begin.

Women have the education, skills and knowledge to participate in these fields. In Malaysia, women make up more than 70% of public university enrolment but they face three major dilemmas. Firstly, even though their enrolment has improved, gender gaps exist in the selection of courses as they prefer non-technical courses. Women dominate in the arts, social sciences, education, health and welfare disciplines but they make up less than 45% of students in engineering, manufacturing and construction courses.

Secondly, there is a mismatch between women’s enrolment in university and participation in the labour force. In 2016, women made up more than 70% of public university enrolment but the female labour force participation rate was only 54.3%. This means that almost half of working-aged Malaysian women are not in the labour market. This situation may derail the Government’s plan to increase women’s participation in the workforce to 59% by the end of 2020.

Thirdly, many talented women choose to leave the workforce and sacrifice their career to fulfil the traditional role of parenting, childcare and managing their homes.

A study conducted in 2014 by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry with the cooperation of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) found that almost 67% of the married women surveyed quit their jobs to look after their children, or to comply with their husbands’ request that they stop working. And 63% of these women were between 25 and 39 years old, the age where they were at the peak of their careers.

There is an urgent need to resolve these dilemmas as our nation is bound to face a labour shortage problem because the changing workforce demographics means that the talent pool would be predominantly women. It is imperative that we address the issues impeding women from realising their full potential as productive workforce and game changers.

The first issue is childcare. There must be enough quality and affordable childcare facilities to help women cope with the demands and challenges of a wife, mother and home manager.

The second issue is employer’s support. Flexible working arrangements, which include part-time work as well as flexible working days, working from home and flexible start and end of work schedules, would help not only women with children but also all employees to manage their work-life balance. The employers’ support in offering flexible working arrangements would be the best option for talented and educated women to continue working.

The third issue is disparity in income. Statistics worldwide show that even though women are better educated, they earn less than men at every level of the job spectrum. But the male-female disparity is greatest at top-end jobs. It is common practice in the corporate world that men are promoted based on potential while women are promoted on past performance. There is an urgent need for employers to craft and implement a gender equality salary scheme to reduce this disparity in order to attract and retain talented women.

Lastly, support from men, especially spouses, is crucial. Men must seriously rethink the masculine-feminine dichotomy that views women as the weaker sex who are passive and dependent. Consequently, they have to stay at home to take care of the children and do household chores while men work to support the family. If this old view persists, career women would be saddled with the impossible task of handling two full-time jobs! Husbands must learn to share the housework and child-rearing chores as women do not have superhuman strength to juggle their roles as career women, wives, mothers and home managers.

Happy Women’s Day and let it be a clarion call for women to move forward as a force to change the world.