Empower women in STEM to close gender gap in Malaysia by 2030

Photo credit: Felixioncool.

In his speech on the 2017 budget, Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Razak emphasized women’s role in society: “Women are the backbone and bedrock of a nation’s development. Since days of old, warriors were not only males but also females.”

In 2015, Malaysia’s female labor force participation climbed 7.3 percent from 46.8 percent in 2010, which translates to 750,000 more women entering the workforce. We’ve also seen an improvement of gender parity in management positions across the top 100 publicly listed companies, with 28.4 percent of these positions filled by women.

Along with the government’s initiatives to empower women workers, employers also need to pay more attention to bridging the gender gap and improving equality in the workplace to retain female employees.

In the spirit of last week’s celebration of International Women’s Day, here’s an article addressing the importance of equal opportunities for women in the workforce, especially in this ever-changing digital world.

Planet 50-50: Gender equality

It is true that a woman’s duty is centered in her home and motherhood […] [but] home should mean the whole country, and not be confined to three or four rooms or a city or a state. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman, during the first American women march in 1909 in New York City

Regardless of their origins, women are constantly challenged by the society on what they are supposed to do and what they can or cannot do, especially when it comes to their careers.

In today’s employment outlook, the top jobs that will dominate in the future mostly come from tech and engineering fields. As a result, it is less likely for women to compete in the job market since they only make up 30 percent of information and communications technology (ICT) professionals and merely 2.7 percent are registered engineers in Malaysia.

Women have always had to wrestle with gender biases. They have limited opportunities in the science stream, resulting in the lack of tertiary female students enrolled in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses, according to the World Economic Forum Gender Gap report.

In the US where technology rapidly develops, women have seen no employment growth in any of these industries since 2002. Not only do women face challenges in seeking STEM jobs, gender inequality in the workplace also hinders their potential to really succeed in these fields. Specifically in the ICT industry, a woman’s median salary is 35 percent lower than a man’s.

In brief, gender equality is not just limited to fighting for women’s rights to participate in the labor market, it is about giving them equal opportunity to unleash their full potential in the workplace. It is therefore important to create more opportunities for women in STEM fields in order to close workplace gender gaps by 2030, a goal established by the UN Women Planet 50-50: Step It Up for Gender Equality campaign.

What can we do to empower women in the changing workplace?

Bonus: Highlights of Malaysia’s 2017 budget for women