Speaking at a roundtable at the Institute of Strategic & International Studies here, Vasquez cited a Unicef report that points to a descending trend in the percentage of children in populations regionally.
“In 2050, globally, the number of children is going to be similar to what we see today, but the number of adults will be significantly larger.
“And even as children are a shrinking percentage of the population, they’re still among the top vulnerable population groups.
“With back-of-the-napkin estimates, the adults of tomorrow need to be at least 20% more productive than they are today,” she said.
Citing International Labour Organization data from 2024, Vasquez said investment in social services was essential, as only 1.6% of Malaysian children were covered by the social protection floor.
“It would take 0.3% of the nation’s GDP by 2042 to actually be able to cover our children with the social protection floor,” she said.
Vasquez said children were facing more challenges with the impact of Covid-19, increased poverty and inequality, climate change and climate-related shocks as well as underinvestment in social services.
“Learning poverty in Malaysia affects children to a larger extent actually than it does in other places in the region. This means that children cannot read or write a simple sentence by the age of 10.
“And we do know that the Covid-19 crisis exacerbated this. We know that foundational skills are critical to thrive in an ever-changing world and enable higher-level skills.
“So if we’re not getting the foundations right, it’s much harder to turn those skills into productivity later on,” she said.
Vasquez said Unicef Malaysia had found that even post-pandemic, families living in PPR flats still struggle with educational access and preparing their children for good jobs.
She said the nation needed to introduce more people-centred, family-friendly policies, including paid parental leave for both fathers and mothers to care for young children, which would remove barriers for mothers to participate in the workforce.
These policies would also include support for breastfeeding mothers and affordable and accessible quality childcare, she said.
“We must remove the responsibility from solely being on caregivers (for children’s well-being and shifting it) to a ‘co-responsibility’ for all of society in terms of bringing up children.
“There is proof that family-friendly policies can help reduce parenting stress, and lead to better business outcomes as well as happier families and healthier children.
“What we have seen from the evidence is that investing in family-planning policies pays off. It’s the best way to future-proof human capital,” she said.