Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin said the women’s political empowerment subindex scored the lowest at 10.2%, emphasising the urgent need for increased female participation in political spheres.

“Despite the significance of Malaysian women’s participation in the economy and education, there is an inspiring opportunity for further progress in leadership positions in the country’s political system, as only 17.9% of women held ministerial positions in 2022,” he said in a statement.

The Malaysia Gender Gap Index in 2022 achieved a 0.2% increase from the previous year, reaching 69.4%.

The index is composed of four sub-indices, namely economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.

Uzir noted that in 2022, 15.7 million of Malaysia’s population of 32.7 million were female.

“In terms of live births, baby girls recorded 204,779 births out of a total of 423,124 live births in 2022,” he said.

He also noted that enrolment of girls was consistently higher than boys in both primary and secondary schools.

In 2022, the gross enrolment rates for females at primary and secondary levels were 98.8% and 94.9% respectively.

“At the tertiary level, women recorded 49.5%, outnumbering men at 33.2%,” he added.