KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 13 —The Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI) recorded an average score of 0.694 or 69.4 per cent in 2022, an improvement of 0.2 per cent compared to 0.692 (69.2 per cent) in 2021, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr. Mohd Uzir Mahidin said three states recorded the highest MGGI scores, namely Putrajaya with a score of 0.792, followed by Kuala Lumpur with 0.767, and Labuan with 0.736.
“Based on the MGGI score for 2022, we are ranked 93rd out of 146 countries globally. At the same time, among East Asia and Pacific countries, Malaysia is ranked 11th in 2022.
“Malaysia leads Timor-Leste which scored 0.693, Brunei Darussalam which scored 0.693, South Korea which scored 0.680, China which scored 0.678, Vanuatu which scored 0.678, Fiji which scored 0.650, Myanmar which scored 0.650, and Japan which scored 0.647,” he said in a statement on Women’s Empowerment Statistics in Selected Domains, Malaysia, 2023, today.
MGGI identifies the gap between women and men in four sub-indices, economic opportunities and participation, educational attainment, health and well-being, and political empowerment.
A score with a value of 1.0 (100 per cent) indicates that gender equality has been achieved.
Meanwhile, Mohd Uzir said women outperformed men in the educational attainment sub-index with a score of 1.067, health and well-being with a score of 0.961, while economic opportunities and participation scored 0.644.
“The rate of female labour force participation (FLFP) is still low at 55.8 per cent in 2022 compared to other Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam with a score of 75.2 per cent and Singapore with a score of 73.2 per cent.
“Political empowerment recorded the lowest score of 10.2 per cent with a score of 0.102, indicating the potential for increased representation and empowerment of women in politics,” he said.
— Bernama
