Women and Poverty

Women and Labour Market

Women and Poverty in Malaysia

INTRODUCTION

Our research country is Malaysia. Malaysia is a multi-ethnic religious country with a population of 28.5 million. It is characterised by mainly three ethnic groups-Malay and indigenous people, Chinese and Indians. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Malaysia contracted to US$156.53 billion in 2007 and US$278.7 billion in 2011, and the GDP growth was 5.7% and 4.7% respectively. While the GDP per capita in Malaysia was last reported at US$7.760 in 2007 and US$5,364.5 in 2011. The Gross Domestic Product (PPP) in Malaysia was reported at US$13,740.83 in 2007 and US$14,730.93 in 2011. The unemployment rate in Malaysia was 3.2% in 2007 and 3% in 2011 based on Department of Statistics in Malaysia, 2011.

The research is about women and poverty in Malaysia. Women make up half of the world's population and yet represent a staggering 70% of the world's poor. For the millions of women living in poverty, their lives are a litany of injustice, discrimination and obstacles that get in the way of achieving their basic needs of good health, safe childbirth, education and employment. Overcoming these inequalities and ensuring that women advantage from development requires that the needs and requirements of women are not only taken into account, but be put front and centre.

There are many reasons why women face a much greater risk of poverty. First is women are paid less than men, even when they have the same qualifications and work the same hours. Discrimination, not lack of training or education, is largely the cause of the wage gap. Women earn less than men even though with the same qualifications. Second is women are segregated into low paying occupations, and occupations dominated by women are low paid. Women are tracked into pink collar jobs such as teaching, child care, nursing, cleaning, and wait ressing, which typically pay less than jobs in industries that are male-dominated. Women also live in poverty because Women spend more time providing unpaid care giving than men. Women are more likely than men to care for children and elderly or disabled family members. Another factor that influence women live in poverty is Pregnancy affects women’s work and educational opportunities more than men’s. The economic costs associated with pregnancy are more significant for women than for men. Unplanned and mistimed pregnancies in particular can result in the termination of education and keep women from getting and sustaining solid employment.

A women were supposed to do housework, take care of children and give the emotional stability in traditional society. The traditional values change with the social and economic change that affect our urban and rural society. Nowadays, women are no longer women and mother who stay at the house but they are also business women, politicians, and contributors to society. Rural women who in most cases do not have full time jobs, have also exposed themselves on various fields of financial acquisitions including commerce, service and agriculture. Although the women stay at home, they also can run business through application of information technology through marketing and advertisement.

                The government of Malaysia has included in its five year development plans, a dedicated chapter on Women and Development since 1991. On the whole, these have primarily regarded women as resources to be mobilised for national good. Women has been participating actively in the nation’s development. The ability and capability of women have been harnessed fully without any form of discrimination.

          The majority of women still in low skilled and low waged jobs and very few in top managerial and decision making posts in Malaysia. Malaysia’s poverty keep decrease from year to year. According to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop in The Star online, Malaysia more than halved its poverty statistics over the past three years, with the number of poor people now standing at less than 110,000 nationwide. The country’s overall poverty rate dropped to 1.7% in 2012, compared to 3.8% in 2009. Malaysians enjoyed an annual increase of 7.2% to their average household income over the 2009-2012 period, or a nearly a RM1,000 hike in their average monthly income from RM4,025 in 2009 to RM5,000 in 2012. Despite similar growth rates, urban household income grew at 6.6% per annum from RM4,705 a month in 2009 to RM5,742 in 2012 while rural household income went up at a rate of 6.4% a year from a monthly average of RM2,545 in 2009 to RM3,080 in 2012.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Zulkarnain A. Hatta and Isahaque Ali (2013) in the research perceived poverty as an amalgamation of various aspects which exceeds the argument on lack of income and not confined to a single-faceted phenomenon. The term of poverty also refers to different adverse social and psychological repercussions namely domestic violence, crime, perceived inadequacy of social investments and problems in expansion of human capital, unfair service delivery and feeble political participation. World Bank normally referred poverty as a failed income “dollar-a-day”. 

Malaysia developed its own poverty line in the 1970s when the government’s national policy gave a high priority for poverty eradication. The government utilized this poverty line on assessments of the minimum consumption requirements of an average sized household for food, shelter, clothing and other non-food needs. Although the poverty line was defined by consumption, poverty status was determined with reference to gross household income rather than expenditure. Thus household with income below the poverty line were defined as living in poverty, and those with income below half the poverty line as living in “hard core” or extreme poverty. 

The new poverty line are defined for each household and averaged to each state and rural or urban location, taking into account relative costs of living, household composition and size. The new poverty line also defines extreme deprivation or hard-core poverty as household with incomes below their food poverty line or households unable to meet their minimum food needs. In 2009, the mean national poverty line translated to an unadjusted RM6.50 per capita a day (equivalent to US$3.00 a day. PPP). To characterize the poverty line income of Malaysia, presently the level of minimum expenditure that is essential to lead a reasonable life is taken into consideration and Customer Price Index (CPI) is utilized to update Poverty Line Income (PLI) every year. To reveal the disparity of cost of living and size of household between the Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak, two different PLIs were adopted. The PLIs was decided for Peninsular Malaysia to be 4.1 at RM763 (US$254) and Sabah and Sarawak to be 4.9 at RM912 (US$304) per month, respectively, as per 9^th Malaysia Plan.

The research of “The Determinants of Urban Household Poverty in Malaysia” by T.Y. Mok, C. Gan and A. Sanyal (2007) is about to analyze the determinants of poverty among women. T.Y. Mok et al. (2007) demonstrated that poverty and women can occur due to the particularities of each country is experiencing economic hardship, high unemployment, and growing income inequality. According to them, the problem of poverty and women crisis in 1997, has affected the poor workers lost their jobs, and general inflation.

Besides that, T.Y. Mok et al. (2007) in the research stated that education level, migrant workers, household size, race and regions were the determinants of urban household poverty in Malaysia especially among women. They also found that the existence of market segmentation and discrimination in the job market has increased the risk of women falling into poverty. Size of family affected the household poverty because larger families are more prone to poverty. Also this research showed that a higher proportion of children under 15 years of age, female and male adults in the household increase the probability of a household falling into poverty.

T.Y. Mok et al. (2007) also reported the variable migrant has the highest marginal contribution to the risk of poverty.Based on this research, data is obtained from Household Expenditure Survey (HES) conducted by the Department of Statistics, Government of Malaysia.A sample of 2,403 urban households from the 2004-05 Household Expenditure Survey (HES) had been used in this research. The most recent HES of 2005 is the main source. Found that education level influences the poverty in Malaysia. Human capital is measured by education level. The lower the education level, the lower the human capital that caused the household falling into poverty.For example, fewer higher educated households has fewer number in poverty than uneducated households. Education level and poverty level has negative relationship as the lower the education level, the higher the rate of poverty. 

T.Y. Mok et al. (2007) found that inflow of foreign workers is related to Malaysia’s economic growth. Rapid growth has led to large illegal inflow from neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar. When foreign workers enter labor market in Malaysia, local people loss their job or they did not offer any other jobs. Problem arising from the country’s dependence on migrant workers for domestic service can be partially addressed by training local women for specific sectors. Household size affected the poverty level in Malaysia. In addition, the decreasing number of children, male adult, female adult and elderly households with increasing per capita expenditure shows the emergence of the nuclear family in higher income households in urban areas of Malaysia.The results also show that a higher proportion of children under 15 years of age, female and male adults in the household increase the probability of a household falling into poverty.The larger the size of the household, the lower their standard cost because of the higher living cost. Married women must stop working or forget about their job just to take care of their children and this due to decreasing in household income.

Besides that, race and regions were also the determinants of urban household poverty in Malaysia especially among women. From this research T.Y. Mok et al. (2007)also found that Chinese has a negative and significant coefficient. This suggests relatively higher employment and business opportunities for the Chinese compared to other races. This means that many Chinese enter the labor market and reduce the poverty rate among them compared to other races. Also found that the incidences of poverty in three new Chinese villages were lower compared to the average for Peninsular Malaysia. Chinese have higher employment rate due to their strong ability of being able to adapt well to changing environment. Based on this research, found that adjusted earnings of the Chinese are 25% higher than those of Malays. Thus, it is believed that the adaptability and higher earning by the Chinese enable them to escape poverty.Urban households living in Region 1 (Western region include Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang),and Region 3 (Eastern region include Sabah, Sarawak, and Labuan) are found to be at a higher risk compared to other regions. Found that Penang in Region 2 and central region displayed the highest average earnings and growth rates between 1983 and 1997 compared to other regions. Therefore, with the low average earnings, the urban poor in Region 1 and 3 would certainly face hardship, especially with the rising cost of living.

RohayuRoddin, Noor Sharipah Sultan Sidi, Yusmarwati Yusof, Maziana Mohamed and Abdul Rasid Abdul Razzaq (2011) in the research of Poverty Alleviation among Single Mother in Malaysia: Building Entrepreneurship Capacity demonstrated that low income job, large number of self-employment, unemployed, low education level, lack of sufficient skills and age factor are the factors that caused the poverty among single mother in Malaysia. Women become a head of household for many reasons such as divorcee, widow, abandoned by husband, helpless husband who is unemployed, imprisoned or migrate (Haji Idris, 2008). In Malaysian society, divorcee and widow are known as janda or balu and both are categorized as single mothers. Based on the census report year 2000, there were 620,389 single mothers in this country (Abu Bakar et.al., 2004). According to Rohayu Roddin et al. (2011) also, the poverty problem in Malaysia that related to women as a household leader is high in the state of Kelantan, Kedah and Terengganu, and most of them live in rural areas. Overall poverty rates for those three states in 2002 were 12.4 percent for the state of Kelantan and 10.7 percent for the state of Kedah and Terengganu respectively. Meanwhile for Kota Bharu, Kuala Terengganu and Alor Star are the capital city with the most poor women household leader.For single mothers who have no working experience, skills or high educational attainment, it is too hard to get a good job in order to meet the needs of life. Hence, many of them get a job in labor market that only provides low-income salary. Although various facilities and support were given in the form of finance and equipment but the number of Bumiputra entrepreneurs, including single mothers who failed in business are still high. Lacks of skills, training, motivation and experiences also lead the single mothers failed in business even though they have designed an entrepreneurship development model for the single mother according to their own capabilities.

Rohayu Roddin et al. (2011) also demonstrated that many women enter the entrepreneurship to improve their basic needs of life also include an aspect such as to change the status of the family, by means of which, women become entrepreneurs because they want to improve the quality of life. The factors that caused many women enter the entrepreneurship are self-interest, desire to change the status of the family, personal satisfaction and profits. Findings suggested that desire to change the status of family is the most factor that inspired women to involve in business enterprise as they want to get out of the cocoon of poverty. In order to reduce their poverty rate, there is also found that many challenges that must be faced by single mothers in entrepreneurship that lead to their failure in business. Many of single mothers in rural areas are found to be less successful in entrepreneurship because they lack of education, lack of training in the related fields, lack of knowledge and understanding about the enterprise.

Based on research also,Rohayu Roddin et al. (2011) many of single mothers in the entrepreneurial are also due to the lack of motivation and self-confidence. This is because after the divorced or their husband past away, the wife will experience a great emotional changed. They often face with many problems in their live which turn to stressful situation. Some single mothers are not strong enough to face with this situation and have a difficulty to handle the family on their own and at the same time to take over responsibility as the head of the family. Lack of capital support also the main cause of failure of single mothers in entrepreneurship. This is because after the divorced or their husband past away, the wife will faced the lack of capital, which becomes an obstacle for individual people to start their business. The success of every entrepreneur is highly depending on a capital support. Lack in capital support will remain the main problem for single mother to success in their business and at the end, they cannot stand anymore with the business. They will lose their job, lose their income and become unemployment. Besides that, Rohayu Roddin et al. (2011) also concluded that surrounding factors such as lack of moral support and lack of support from the government, has caused a problem for single mothers to develop their potential in the field of entrepreneurship. Support from various parties such as governments, families and communities is essential and important for them to develop their potential in achieving the objectives of entrepreneurship.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Based on the findings of the journals that we choose, we found that total over poverty rate among women are very high, it is around 900 million from 1.3 million of the world population. These numbers are quite high and this amount included single mother. As we know, the populations of women in Malaysia are more than men. It means that most of women in Malaysia facing poverty especially single mother who do not have a job. Even though they have job, but the amount of income they earn is not enough to earn and fulfill her needs and also her children. In Peninsular Malaysia the amount of income poverty is RM425. This amount is based on the Seventh Malaysia Plan. From the data in the journal, we found the state that has a higher poverty rate in Malaysia is Sabah followed by Sarawak and Terengganu. In our analysis, those three (3) states had a higher poverty rate because these states have a slow domestic growth. But it is also occur because of the scarcity of complement input in this state. In other case, state of Kelantan also shows the higher poverty problems that related to women as a household leader. This is happened because of many factors such as discrimination among women, age factor, and lower income job and lack sufficient skills. The lack of employment opportunities among women especially a single mother also make the poverty rate in this states are higher. 

Most of the economics activity they doing are based on traditional economic. In the rural area, most of women do not get their education and also single mother. This situation makes, this states showed the higher poverty rate. Besides that, most of the poor households live in the rural areas. They did not have telecommunication and also sophisticated facilities. Women in this rural area choose to be mother and full housewife. Most of them do not participate in the labor market and only take care of their children. But this is the problem to the women if her husband passed away because she cannot get a job due to no experience and high education level. As a solution, these single mothers are only do village work to support her family. They only get a small amount of income and it is not enough to her family.

Lack of information about the work and discrimination among single mother also factor that makes single mother involve in poverty. There have differences especially to get a job between single mother who are live in the rural area and in the city. If we can see even though she is a single mother but live in the city, she still can find a job with the higher position. This is because people have different opinion for single mother who live in the city and in rural area. Single mother that live in the city, have more opportunity to get more information about the job and qualification required in the job. They can collect more information about the job though the different types of media such as internet, books or magazine. But for single mother that live in rural area, they do not have any information about the job. This is because they live in rural area and did not have any telecommunication to help them search about the job. So, many companies will choose to give a job to the single mothers who live in city compare in the rural area.

Veronica A. Kumurur (2009) in the research also demonstrated that the unemployment among women are higher compare to the males where they also a discriminated group. Discrimination among single mother causes they cannot find or get a job. Talks about discrimination, in Malaysia this problem still occur, particularly for single mother. Many agencies do not want to hired single mother, because they did not confident in her (single mother) ability to do the job particularly heavy work.From our analysis most of the single mother in Malaysia working as a lower worker in the labor market. They only work at factory, farm, shop or market. They cannot get the higher job and higher income because they are single mother. Majority companies in Malaysia would like to hire workers who are unmarried, no children, have high education and knowledge, more of experience and skills. They will think twice if the company wants to hire women who are already married and have child. This is the problem that single mother facing in Malaysia.

From the research also, T.Y. Mok et al. (2007) demonstrated that poverty and women can occur due to the particularities of each country is experiencing economic hardship, high unemployment, and growing income inequality. According to them, the problem of poverty and women crisis in 1997, has affected the poor workers lost their jobs, and general inflation. Recession in 1997 in Malaysia also the causes of poverty. Due to recession, the high inflation occur, the income decreases causes the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita will be also decreases. So people become poorer due to the higher unemployment and no source of income.

Other than that research also concluded that marriage women or larger families also face the problem of poverty as well as additional income and poor economy or in other words, the economy is unstable. Due to marriage women stop from college or university to focus on their family. When come to the labor force, it is so difficult to be employed because they are not enough educated. So, due to the lot of highly educated people offered their services, they tend to get the job compare to whom not educated enough. The education is an important determinant and should belong to every person and society. For example, if a person has a higher education, then it will reduce poverty.

In addition, poverty among women can also be caused by reduction in the number of children, male and female, adult and elderly with increased spending showed a higher income for the family. This is because, with the increased expenses it will cost the average family will be spending less to do so due to inflated prices. Furthermore, as well as increased income also.

From the journal, the economic planning unit and department of statistics Malaysia, poverty line at 2010 include Incidence of Poverty, No of Poor Households, Mean PLI and Mean Per Capita PLI. In the analysis of poverty is the highest percentage in the state of Sabah and Labuan at 19.2%, followed by Sarawak by 5.3% and the lowest note is the Malaysian peninsula by 2.0% only. This condition may occur due to lack of employment or education level of the population that makes them no chance to get a better job to help improve the standard of living. After various efforts that have been made, Malaysia has succeeded in reducing the incidence of poverty. In 1970, the poverty rate stood at 49.3% and was reduced to 8.1% in 1999. In 2010, 5.5% was recorded. This shows that Malaysia has in reducing poverty significantly by using effective strategies. Poverty rate also decreased by 0.5% to make poverty in 2004 by 1.2% to 0.7% in 2009. According to the Department of Statistics in 2011, the overall poverty rate in Malaysia is 3.7%.

The challenges for poverty reduction in Malaysia including Migrants workers issues, influx of foreign workers in Malaysia, legally or not are a major challenge to reduce poverty in Malaysia. Lack of jobs has affected the urban poor, as most Malaysians using foreign labor, particularly in the areas of construction and farm. When foreign workers enter labor market in Malaysia, local people loss their job or they did not offer to any other jobs. Problem arising when our country, Malaysia dependence on migrant workers for domestic service especially workers from Indonesia due to lower wage demanded by them compare to local people. This situation makes it difficult for local people to get jobs and lead to increased levels of unemployment in Malaysia.

From the analysis and discussion that we made, we can summarize that poverty among women in Malaysia are not because they do not have education and skills. Rohayu Roddin et al. (2011) and T.Y. Mok et al. (2007) in the research agree that the education level or low education level causing the poverty especially among women. This problem also occur because of the people of their surroundings. Many people or company did not hire single mother or women because they did not confident to their ability. Because they are women and have children people surrounding did not give chance to single mother shows their skills, knowledge and ability.The lack of information and discrimination among single women causes this group marginalized and poor.Besides that there is positive relationship between income and higher education in Malaysia, which means women who are low educated are tend to more poverty compared to highly educated women.

As conclusion, poverty in Malaysia is influenced by many factors such as the arrival of foreign workers in Malaysia, discrimination, the poor level of education especially for the rural population. However, the government's efforts in reducing poverty since independence is effective, looking at the statistics show that in the planning and development unit in Malaysia, Malaysian government's efforts to look free from poverty will be achieved.

According to Department of Statistic Malaysia, labor force participate of female keep increase from year to year. In year 2000 34.73% labor force is female. This number increase to 34.81% in year 2001. In year 2002, there is 34.91% female in labor force. Year 2004, 35.11% female labor force compared in year 2003 35.01%. This number keep increase until year 2010, there is 35.81% of labor force is female. So it show that the poverty and unemployment among women in Malaysia keep decreasing from year to years.

RECOMMENDATION AND SOLUTION

There are some recommendations that can help the economic development and poverty reduction in Malaysia. The first one is young people from rural areas especially women should be given the technical and vocational training as they form the back bone of work force. Promoting the development of concentrated industrial clusters and supporting ecosystem towards enabling specialization and economies of scale, increasingly targeting investment promotion towards investment quality (as opposed to just quantity), which support higher value add activities and diffusion of technology and increasing public investment into the enablers of innovation, and venture capital funding. Skills training should be given special emphasis to develop the necessary human capital to meet industry's requirements and drive productivity improvements to move up the value chain.

          Second is technical education and vocational training should be mainstreamed, with a focus towards raising the quality of qualifications. This is a key towards providing a viable alternative to enable individuals to realize their full potential, according to their own inclination, expertise and talent. This principle necessitates a renewed focus on championing the interests of each and every community, ensuring no group is left behind or marginalized in the course of the nation's development. Social justice should be required taking into consideration the respective levels of achievement of each community. The distributional policies of the government will therefore be focused towards ensuring equality of opportunities for all.

          Third is well-being of the urban bottom 40% households will have to be addressed through capacity building programs to improve their income and overall quality of life programs to increase the incomes of rural households will focus on upgrading their skills, linking them to employers in nearby clusters and cities as well as providing support for self employment, micro-businesses and small scale industries. Efforts will also have to be focused to increase the productivity and sustainability of agro-based activities through the adoption of modern agricultural technology and expansion of contract farming. Improved human capital productivity within rural agriculture and agro-based industries has to be reinvigorated. Additionally, skills training are needed in areas such as carpentry, tailoring, baking, hospitality, handicrafts, motor mechanism and food processing to support self-employment.

          Fourth strategy is capacity building in Malaysia in the context of alleviation of social-economic inequalities is being implemented by expanding the economy, and at the same time giving subsidies to the needy. So if government expanding the economy, the employment or job opportunities will be increase. Then it may decrease the unemployment among women, where they can get the jobs much more easier due to a lot vacancy in job.

Other way to achieve the strategic reduced the poverty among women is to have two objective which mean enabling equitable opportunities for all such as providing a social safety net for the disadvantaged groups. For the second objective is about be emphasized to the health, education and basic infrastructure and then for the targeted income support in mechanisms will be enhanced general subsidies are being phased out.

          Other strategy that can solve the poverty is a combination of continued welfares and a new drive towards independent living. Hence, improved capacity building was enhanced and new programs were introduction order to take care of the vulnerable or the so called bottom million of society.

Achievements in poverty reduction were driven by agreeing on the definition and measurement of poverty. Other than that increasing productivity and diversifying sources of income and targeting the hardcore poor through a special program focused on their needs and delivering other appropriate assistance to improve their situation. 

Besides that to solve the problem is involve private sector and nongovernmental organizations and improving assistance directed at the poor who were aged or disabled and therefore nor employable . In addition to solve the problem is maintaining stable prices, a strategy that involved government intervention in the markets of a small number of food and other essential items. Reducing or eliminating income tax rates for the poor. 

In other part of the policies in Malaysia, the core policies were the most important; their components formed the benchmark for all other policies and plans. The two core national policies were based on a philosophy of growth with equitable distribution. The policies saw national unity as the goal of the development and the two-pronged strategy to achieve it the eradication of poverty and the restructuring of the society. This was to be conducted within the context of rapid and continuous economic growth.

Based on New economic Policy (NEP), after the riots, was ostensibly designed to create the socio-economic conditions for achieving ‘national unity’ through redistributive policies. It had three principal objectives which is to eradicate poverty regardless of race, but particular among Malay peasantry to restructure society to eliminate the identification of race with economic function and to redistribute wealth to the benefit of the Bumiputera. So we conclude that the poverty program, combined with Malaysia rapid economic growth, helped to reduce poverty and improve the quality of all Malaysians.   

The poverty among women can be reduce if all the recommendation are be applied. Government play a major roles in overcome the poverty among women. There a lot of way that government can implement in order to overcome poverty among women. For example government use a policy in expanding the economy. When government expand the economy,there will be a lot of opportunities jobs offer to those seeking for the job. Then it may decrease the unemployment among women, where they can get the jobs much more easier due to a lot vacancy in job.

         

CONCLUSION

To conclude all, from the discussion of this paper, it shows that women are the group that makes up most of the poverty in Malaysia than the men. It also shows that the group of women that contributed to the poverty in Malaysia was the singled mother and women who live in the rural area. In the five literature review, the determinants that we have identified are women that have bigger family prone to poverty, low income level, low level in education and skills, unemployed and the arrival of foreign workers that taken away their opportunity in job market. Whereas, to overcome the problems, some recommendations that we have made are the government and NGO parties should giving technical and vocational training for young people in the rural area and to the singled mother who live in urban and rural area, provide them soft skills training, giving subsidies to the needy, maintaining stable prices, restriction on hiring migrant workers and encourage women to get involved in all driven income activities by giving them support and loan. As this will be implemented and taken care by all parties, the poverty rate in Malaysia will be reduced and women life in Malaysia will be better.

REFERENCES

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