According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2024, Malaysia ranked last in gender equality among 9 ASEAN countries and 114th out of 146 countries globally. Myanmar was excluded due to unavailability of data. Malaysia’s low ranking stems primarily from poor performance in the Economic Participation & Opportunity and Political Empowerment sub-indexes.

In 2023, Malaysia’s female labour force participation rate stood at 56.2%, substantially lower than the male rate of 82.3%. This is despite Malaysia achieving perfect gender parity in Educational Attainment, indicating that many educated women remain outside the workforce—a significant loss of talent for the country. To address this gap, the Malaysian government should intensify efforts to empower women socially and economically, thereby leveraging a broader talent pool to drive national progress.