Factors affecting the transition from university to work in selected Malaysian cities: is a public university degree a disadvantage?

Massive investments in higher education have witnessed a proliferation of public and private universities in Malaysia. A parallel development of concern is the view that public university graduates are finding it more difficult than their private university counterparts in transiting from university to work. To test the empirical veracity of this widely expressed belief, data from 441 currently employed graduates from three major urban centres were analysed to determine factors that increased the probability of securing permanent employment within six months of graduation, the officially used cut-off period. While the findings indicated that the transition is eased largely by personal endeavours (other than being Chinese) such as mastering English, attaining a high GPA, and participating in extracurricular activities, we also found a negative association between having a public university qualification and the length taken to secure the first permanent job. We discuss the implications of these findings for Malaysian education policy. If a public university degree indeed disadvantages a graduate in transiting to work, it would undermine the role of public universities as avenues for the upward social mobility of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Additionally, the large expenditures on public universities would appear to be misallocated

A global review of COVID-19 Assistance Program for Small Business

Objective – This paper offers a review of the latest studies with regards to the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses in different countries around the world. Methodology – This paper reviewed a compilation of COVID-19 studies focusing on SMEs that was conducted between 2020 and 2022. The review enables us to understand the globally common or underlying challenges to SMEs due to COVID-19, along with an assessment of government’s initiatives that were implemented to alleviate the impact. The review revealed that the pandemic caused a major disruption for small businesses which also acts as a catalyst towards digitization and innovation towards competitiveness which is facilitated by government initiatives. The review process comprises systematic and vast-ranging search for articles related to the subjects to look for evidence, and secondly, for limit the risk of biasness. Findings – This survey of experiences elsewhere might provide insights to policymakers in countries that are struggling to cope with the problem on the initiatives to consider and the additional initiatives that might be necessary to make them effective in their individual country contexts. Novelty – Given limitations of space, we survey only a limited sample of countries from Asia and Europe, along with the US and Canada. Hopefully, their experiences will provide a broad enough spectrum of initiatives for policymakers elsewhere to consider and evaluate

Global food insecurity in university: Literature review

Food insecurity is a global problem among universities. This article reviews the literature on food insecurity among college students globally, utilizing incidence rate of hunger, insufficient consumption and impact on educational results in university for comparison while understanding the various approach that has been taken to reveal these findings. Recommendations proposed include managing the food insecurity on program in partnership with NGOs, government agency campuses, developing es, and faculties’ members to ease its negative impact on students. Few if not no systematic literature review was ever done that study the issue of food insecurity in university globally

Gender Earnings Differential In The Malaysian Manufacturing Sector

This study estimated the size of the male-female earnings differential in the Malaysian manufacturing sector and further decomposed it into the part that is explained by differences in endowments and the part that remains unexplained. Further decomposition was done by education levels, ethnicity, marital status, occupation groups, manufacturing subsectors, firm size, firm ownership and trade union membership. The data used was drawn from the Second Productivity and Investment Climate Survey (PICS II), 2006, conducted collaboratively by the World Bank, the Malaysian Department of Statistics, and the Economic Planning Unit

Gender Inequality In Malaysia Labour Force: Data Evidence

Women have overcome many challenges within the labour market, but gender inequality still exists in the form of total employment by categories and states. The higher gender disparity was found in Selangor with the ratio of the men and women employed at 599,200 and this is concentrated in the 30-34 years old. The past findings on the gender discrimination practice in the Malaysian labour market motivated this study to fill the literature gap by providing an up-close analysis on the differences observed within the different states in Malaysia, the difference that can be observed by age group, by the status of employment, by the different sectors of employment and the gender difference as observed in mean and median wages. As context for the finding, an overview of the government policy initiatives to close the gender gap is also provided. One of the proposed recommendations was the balanced responsibility between both genders in household care

Covid-19 and its impact on self-employed women

Debates and studies about self–employed women are very important during the Covid-19 pandemic in designing strategies to diminish the negative impact of the crisis on this particular group of workers. The methodology used for this paper consists of a library search and an evaluation of the literature. References are based on online databases. Women face various challenges when they are self–employed and the Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated their problems. This article studies the challenges encountered by self-employed women and discusses some of the initiatives to address the issues faced by them

Re-examining Gender Earning Differentials in Malaysian Manufacturing

The manufacturing sector is a major avenue for female employment in the urban labor market in Malaysia. Only two studies, both published more than two decades ago, have examined gender earning differentials in this sector. Since then, the percentage of women being educated has increased, along with their participation rate, and several laws protecting their rights have also been passed, making it timely to re-examine the earnings gap. We do this by drawing on more recent data from a larger representative survey of manufacturing employees. The Blinder-Oaxaca technique, utilized in the previous two studies, was used to estimate the existing earnings gap and to decompose it to differences attributable to endowments, coefficients (traditionally viewed as subsuming discrimination), and the interaction between the two. We found a smaller gap than previously reported, with better female endowments helping to narrow the gap, and unexplained differences in coefficients being responsible for the remaining gap. The interaction effect was not statistically significant. Contrary to the earlier studies, the differential treatment of women in the manufacturing sector, rather than endowment differences, is hampering the equalization of earnings. This calls for newer approaches to closing the earnings gap

A systematic literature review of Covid-19 impact to SME’s adoption of e-commerce

This paper presents a systematic review of existing literature analyzing the E-commerce SME. The objectives of this paper is to provide an insight through a systematic literature review of latest research evidence on e-commerce adoption among small to medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) with a focus in Malaysia. It is necessary to address our concern because of this adoption in order help SME digital solutions. This paper could be very helpful for researchers, investors, policy-makers and whoever interested in the impact to SME"s adoption of e-commerce in Malaysia development

Effects Of Discrimination in The Workplace on Turnover rate

Discrimination has been identified as a significant risk factor for employee turnover and organizational performance. Discriminatory encounters may behave similarly to other pressures in that they trigger physiological responses that accelerate turnover. The purpose of this conceptual literature review is to summarize the past studies on discrimination and turnover rate and to analyze the impact of workplace discrimination on job satisfaction and turnover intentions. This paper used to systematically examine English-only research retrieved from the Emerald, Science Direct, and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) databases. This study found that both females and males experienced gender discrimination in the workplace. The lower the workplace discrimination the lower turnover rate in an organization. This study points out limitations in the available evidence and makes recommendations for future research into the relationship between discrimination and turnover rate

Covid-19 And the Socioeconomic Impact on Self-employment in Sabah

The movement control order (MCO) and restrictions in economic activities issued in response to the COVID-19 outbreak has caused significant disruptions in employment. The impact of the pandemic has been greater for self-employed persons than for employed workers, as self-employed persons usually experience substantial obstacles in keeping their businesses alive. Studies on self-employment are thus very important for the nation since they are related to attempts to lessen the detrimental impact of covid-19 on self-employment. Entrepreneurs have overcome numerous challenges within the self–employment. This article investigates theCovid-19 impact on self-employment and small business income and sales. The paper also identify he salient beliefs that policymakers could target to reduce the problem faced by self-employed and small businesses. An online survey was conducted to see on how the self-employed are faring in the crisis covering their work patterns, earnings, concerns and expectations for the future. 185 respondents were collected. This paper suggest that policymakers can start thinking about self-employment policies for a post-COVID-19 economy now, because there is a need for more targeted measures to help disadvantaged self-employed persons stay in business