Labor force participation of women in Malaysia

The article analysis the women labor force participation in Malaysia. The rapid absorption of women into the labor market has been influenced by several factors. The rapid economic growth was due largely to important growth in the manufacturing and services sectors, where substantial and proportionally larger increase of female workers has been registered. Among all sectors of the economy, the manufacturing sector has recorded the highest growth rate during the last decade. The increase in the female labor force participation may also be attributable to improving economic incentives in employment and policies favoring the employment of women. In addition, the combined effects of increased years of schooling, access to family planning services, improved maternal and child care, leading to arise in the average age at marriage, have allowed women to take advantage of the increased employment opportunities

A preliminary study of rural women entrepreneurs: Characteristics and business success factors

This paper aims to identify a demo-socio-economic profile of rural women entrepreneurs and investigate the elements of how cultural values, Islamic values, social and environment, individual beliefs, and opportunities/infrastructure have influence on the successful of rural business women.In this preliminary study, a total of 36 respondents in northern area of Kedah were interviewed.This study found most of the entrepreneurs are married and have some previous working experience.The result shows that almost 80 per cent of respondents believe in religion, work hard, and always thankful to God. They highlighted the importance of exposure to entrepreneurships since childhood, and keeping good manners as the most important factors in influencing the success of the business.In terms of Islamic practice, a total of 80.6 per cent agreed that the business must be ‘halal’ and trustworthy is a must in each transaction involved.This study further discovers that the biggest challenge is to balance the time between family and business

A long-run relationship between the trade and its determinants for a group of selected Arab Maghreb Union Countries

The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) comprising Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia has established a framework to enhance regional cooperation on trade facilitation. It is doubtful whether the Arab Maghreb countries could achieve the goals of this regional cooperation or not. The objective of this study is to examine a long-run relationship between the trade and its determinants for a group of selected Arab Maghreb Union Countries.Using a data set consisting of a panel observation for the AMU countries for the period of 1989-2009; a panel unit root test was done to investigate the possibility of panel cointegration.Overall, the results are consistent with those found in Pedroni approach in all cases, parameters for the variables are found to be correctly signed and highly significant. In terms of trade openness, the results show that the trade barriers are found to be positively and significantly correlated with openness where their relationships within the AMU trade intensity ratios show a strong correlation.In other words, the trade barriers are fairly effective for increasing trade

Age and sequence of eruption of permanent teeth in children and adolescents in North-eastern Malaysia

The aim of this study is to determine the age and sequence of eruption of permanent teeth as well as gender differences in children and adolescents in the state of Kelantan, north-eastern Malaysia. Cross-sectional data on permanent tooth eruption were collected by examining pre-school, primary and secondary school children of 5-17 years of age. The subjects were drawn by multistage random sampling from the school register. There were 2382 subjects in the sample, 1062 boys and 1320 girls. A tooth was considered erupted if any part of its crown was visible in the mouth. The data were subjected to probit analysis to compute the eruption time of each individual tooth in terms of median, 95th percentile and 99 percentile. The mean age of eruption of lower first molar is 6.0 years (5.8yr,6.2yr) at 95%CI and for lower canine is 10.2 years (10.0yr,l0.3yr) at 95%CI. The median age of eruption of each tooth was earlier in girls than in boys. Although the range of years during which the teeth erupted was similar in both sexes, the sequence of the individual teeth differed. All mandibular teeth, with the exception of first and second premolars in both males and females, tended to erupt earlier than their maxillary counterparts. The findings seem to correspond to earlier studies done in the other parts of the world, however the eruption time seems to be earlier compared to studies done in Thailand and Madras

Empowering older women in Malaysia: Understanding their health care demand

Understanding factors that affect health care demand by elderly women is vital for a health system to be more supportive towards women’s empowerment.This paper presents the medical care utilization of the elderly women; identify the existence of income-related inequity in health care utilization and the role of living arrangements of the elderly on health care utilization among the elderly women in Kedah State.A total number of 202 of respondents aged 62 to 95 were interviewed face-to-face using a structured questionnaire.The Probit and Poisson model were used in estimating the demand equation. It is found that income, after controlling for other socioeconomic and health related factors, is not statistically significant in affecting the likelihood of doctor visits, and the frequency of the visits.The role of living arrangement, as measured by marital status and the number of individual aged 18 and over living together is also not significant in both models.This result suggests that older women in the area of study can somehow make independent decisions regarding their health care demand, which demand should ideally base on health status rather than not other factors

Perception of Sabah local youths on socio-economic prospect towards career in oil palm plantation

Sabah is the biggest state in contributing to the oil palm commodity in Malaysia with 1.54 million hectares of oil palm plantation and contributing 27.4 % of the total oil palm area in Malaysia. The potential and the opportunity of vacancy in this sector were very wide for local people in Sabah especially for the local youth.However the local youth in this state prefer to work in urban area especially most of them migrate to West Malaysia which offered more jobs in manufacturing and services sectors Due to this reason the more than 78 % of labour in this sectors mainly were foreign labour.The rising social issues of the illegal foreign workers and influx of the foreign workers without work permit work in Sabah.In addition another problem arises when the local youth migrate back to Sabah without job due to high of cost of leaving in urban area. This resulted social problem among the youth due to unemployment issue. This study was done in order to analyse the pull or push factors in constructing a particular pattern of perception among the selected respondents on socio economic prospect toward career in oil plantation. A survey method through structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 156 of local youth between 16 to 40 years of age as focused respondents which were selected using random sampling method. Descriptive statistic was applied in order to rank the factors according to demographic factors that affecting the factor of perception of local youth on socio- economic prospect towards career in oil palm plantation

The prevalence of diabetes mellitus and hypertension and its effects on healthcare demand among elderly in Malaysia

Introduction The prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Malaysia shows a rising trend that influences the society in many respects. Country specific evidence is vital for effective intervention. The aims of this study were to identify the role of gender and urbanisation status on NCDs prevalence and its effect on health care demand, specifically doctor visits among elderly in Malaysia. We focused on two of the highest occurrence NCDs in the country – diabetes mellitus and hypertension. Methods A total of 1,414 respondents aged 60 years and above were selected using a multistage sampling for face-to-face interview. We started the analysis with descriptive analysis of the prevalence, taking the effect of gender and urbanisation status of residing area. We extended the study with parametric analysis to find the effect of these health problems on the likelihood of doctor visits as it reflects the equity for access and utilisation issues. Results Results showed that there were no significant difference of prevalence by gender and urbanisation for hypertension and diabetes mellitus. By utilising probit model, we found that those with diabetes mellitus or hypertension, controlling for other variables, were more likely to utilise doctor services. Conclusion This result implies that the prevalence of NCDs may further increase demand for health care, especially in the state with a high proportion of older age groups

Job Happiness Among Local Youth in Sabah and Sarawak Towards Working in Oil Palm Plantation

The rapid expansion of oil palm plantation in Malaysia in 1990, 2.03 million hectares to 5.73 million hectares in 2016 caused required high labour intensive in this sector. Sabah and Sarawak were the main contributor of oil palm plantation which represented 33.30 percent among the states of Malaysia. More than 78% of labours (Azman, 2014) in these sectors mainly came from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Philippines and most of the local youth refused to participate in an oil palm plantation due to the working environment compared to manufacturing sector which more conducive. Hence, this contributes instability and unsustainability in the oil palm industry due to more dependence on foreign labour. The negative perception of local youth on nature of work and social status as a 4D job (Difficult, Dangerous, Dirty and Demeaning) made this working in oil palm plantation is the last choice of job among those who were still working and already left from oil palm plantation (Zaki et al., 2015). Thus, the objective of this paper is to explore the level of job happiness among oil palm plantation local youth which still working and those who left in this both states and analysing the factors contribute to their satisfaction and happiness level. The purposive randomised sampling among the 98 local youths aged ranging from 16 to 40 years old which was considered as the youth category and staying within the location 5 kilometres radius within the plantation area those who are still working and working before in this oil palm sector. The Partial Least Square was used to analyse the satisfaction and happiness level among this category of this group. The result found those who left from working in the plantation sector showed more significant value compared to those who are still working. This showed the construction reflects the satisfaction and happiness level if the plantation sector fulfilled the intrinsic factors of job satisfaction and happiness

Job Happiness Among Local Youth in Sabah and Sarawak Towards Working in Oil Palm Plantation

The rapid expansion of oil palm plantation in Malaysia in 1990, 2.03 million hectares to 5.73 million hectares in 2016 caused required high labour intensive in this sector. Sabah and Sarawak were the main contributor of oil palm plantation which represented 33.30 percent among the states of Malaysia. More than 78% of labours (Azman, 2014) in these sectors mainly came from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Philippines and most of the local youth refused to participate in an oil palm plantation due to the working environment compared to manufacturing sector which more conducive. Hence, this contributes instability and unsustainability in the oil palm industry due to more dependence on foreign labour. The negative perception of local youth on nature of work and social status as a 4D job (Difficult, Dangerous, Dirty and Demeaning) made this working in oil palm plantation is the last choice of job among those who were still working and already left from oil palm plantation (Zaki et al., 2015). Thus, the objective of this paper is to explore the level of job happiness among oil palm plantation local youth which still working and those who left in this both states and analysing the factors contribute to their satisfaction and happiness level. The purposive randomised sampling among the 98 local youths aged ranging from 16 to 40 years old which was considered as the youth category and staying within the location 5 kilometres radius within the plantation area those who are still working and working before in this oil palm sector. The Partial Least Square was used to analyse the satisfaction and happiness level among this category of this group. The result found those who left from working in the plantation sector showed more significant value compared to those who are still working. This showed the construction reflects the satisfaction and happiness level if the plantation sector fulfilled the intrinsic factors of job satisfaction and happiness

Labour force participation of rural youth in plantation sector of Northern Peninsular Malaysia

Malaysian agricultural industry is labour-intensive, especially in oil palm plantations. It is reported in 2013 that 69% of the total number of plantation worker in oil palm plantation are foreign and 31% are local. This proportion indicates the lack of interest of the local people to work in the industry which resulted in vast employment of foreign worker. It is believed that the cost of foreign worker recruitment has increased due to rising social and security problems caused by the foreign workers which incurred a hidden cost to palm oil production. This paper aims to investigate the factors of local young labour shortage in oil palm plantation sector in Perak, Perlis, and Kedah. Malaysia can reduce its dependency on foreign worker by identifying the occupational interest of rural youth in oil palm plantation. A survey questionnaire is used to collect data using random and purposive sampling method. A total number of 332 respondents from rural young labours staying in FELDA and FELCRA areas were analysed using Probit model. Results show the factors contributing to the probability to participate in oil palm plantation are age, wage, wage squared, gender, level of education, and mother’s occupation. Attraction factors that can possibly increase local youth participation in plantation sector includes improvement of working environment, job status, facility and benefit in plantation field