KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 — Making women focus on raising children would derail rather than aid Malaysia’s ambition to be a high-income nation as half its workers are female, DAP’s Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud said today.
Rubbishing Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) family and society bureau chief Dr Nur Farrah Nadia Najib’s contention that men should be the nation’s sole breadwinners, the DAP member said the proposal would also saddle the country with dire joblessness.
“Based on the statistics provided by the Department of Statistics, as of 2011, almost 50 per cent of our workforce is female and it decreases significantly from age group 35-44 years.
“If we are to agree with ISMA, who will replace that 50 per cent of our workforce? With that sudden high unemployment rate, how would that make Malaysia a high income nation?” the political secretary to DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang said in a statement today.
Dyana added that Nur Farrah’s suggestion was discriminatory against women by implying that their participation in the labour market would hamper Malaysia’s aim to become a high-income country.
Rather than advocating the discrimination, the DAP member said Nur Farrah should understand that the both sexes working together equally were necessary for the country to achieve its economic goals.
On Thursday, Nur Farrah argued that Malaysia can still be a high-income nation if its men remain the main breadwinners and its women focused on raising children, amid concerns over the effect of youth marriages on the economy.
“A high income nation must not rely on women as the major contributor, but rather men should lead the workforce and put their biggest effort in shaping the nation,” she wrote on the group’s website.
“Our females need to be highly educated in various skills to bring up healthy, successful girls and boys and must contribute to the community in a way that best suits them,” she added, without elaborating further.
Citing the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Dr Nur Farrah listed Japan as an example of a successful nation with low involvement of women in the workforce, making up about 40 per cent of the workforce and only 1.2 per cent of board members in major corporations.
The suggestion drew ridicule from social activist Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, who called the idea old-fashioned and questioned its practicality given that women accounted for two-thirds of all tertiary students in the country.
“How very retro! So what do we do with the fact that only 30 per cent of our university undergrads are male?” Marina said.
