Malaysia aims for more women in the workforce and greater support for single mothers

Malaysia stands by the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It aims to achieve high-income status by 2020, but cannot do this without women being equal partners and drivers of growth and prosperity for all citizens. Its most recent budget made upholding the role of women a core strategy, and it aims to boost the female labour participation rate from 54 per cent as of last year to 59 per cent by 2020. By 2016, all Malaysian public companies will be required to disclose their level of gender diversity in their annual reports. Since single mothers and female-headed households are often socially and economically disadvantaged, particularly in rural areas, Malaysia has developed a national action plan to empower them. Speaking at the Global Leaders' Meeting on 27 September 2015, Prime Minister Najib Razak said: “We aim to achieve high-income nation status by 2020. But we cannot do this without women being equal partners, and we need them to be drivers of growth – growth that will bring prosperity to all our citizens.”