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THE persistently low rate of female participation in Malaysia’s workforce must be addressed as a national priority, with millions of women sidelined not by lack of capability, but by the weight of unpaid domestic responsibilities.
According to statistics up to 2022, the female labour force participation rate stood at just 55.8 per cent, compared to nearly 82 per cent for men—despite women accounting for 57 per cent of university graduates.
Speaking at a luncheon during the 4th World Women Economic and Business Summit (WWEBS) held at the Seri Pacific Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Deputy President of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Nurul Izzah Anwar underscored that many women are either forced to leave employment or cannot enter the workforce due to the burden of childcare and unpaid family duties.
“More than three million women cite housework and family responsibilities as the primary reason they do not work, whereas only a small number of men give the same explanation,” she said.
“Globally, women perform 76.4 per cent of all unpaid care work, averaging 4.5 hours a day compared to just 1.4 hours for men. In Malaysia, the Khazanah Research Institute’s 2018 Time Use Study found women spend over 60 per cent more time on unpaid care work than men—even after a full day at work.”
The summit, themed *‘Shaping the Future: Women Leading a Digital, Sustainable and Inclusive Era’*, gathered women leaders, entrepreneurs, policymakers and changemakers from across the Asia-Pacific region to highlight women’s roles in navigating and driving transformation across society and the economy.
Nurul Izzah highlighted that the “double shift” faced by working women—balancing formal employment with domestic responsibilities—continues to be overlooked, with inadequate structural support to alleviate the burden.
“That is why the government must pursue solutions to bridge gender equality gaps in family care, technology and employment policies, if we are to achieve the goal of 60 per cent female workforce participation within the next decade,” she said.
She also stressed the importance of equity in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), warning that unchecked bias in algorithmic systems could reinforce discrimination.
“Fair and inclusive AI development requires comprehensive collaboration between tech companies, government and academia—emphasising diverse development teams, balanced data, and robust bias audits,” she said.
Quoting Zinnya del Villar from UN Women, Nurul Izzah noted that AI systems trained on stereotypical data sets tend to replicate and entrench gender biases.
“This bias is not theoretical—it directly influences opportunity and diversity in critical sectors such as hiring, decision-making, loan approvals and legal judgements.
“If left unmonitored, these biased algorithms risk hardcoding discrimination into our future systems, regardless of how sophisticated the technology becomes,” she said. - July 10, 2025