This chapter has presented and identified a brief overview of the connections between Malaysia’s historical background, and the construction of ethnic backgrounds namely Malay, Chinese and Indian. It then scrutinised the factors contributing to the endowment of special privilege to the Malays by the state, differencing them from non-Malays. This chapter also reviewed the position of women in the Malaysian labour market and existing research clearly indicates the increased participation in paid workforce since Independence. The policies developed by the state such as the NEP, NVP and NPW also improved the perception of women as the new breadwinner in the family, and they are no longer confined to the roles of mother and wife as perceived in the traditional gender ideology. Yet, analysis showed that women are still clustered within certain female traditional occupations such as services and sales positions.
The analysis of the literature has considered some of the debates in relation to potential influences on the proportion of women in senior positions. Evidently, women in Malaysia have made good progress in entering the labour market. It could be seen that a lot of initiatives have been proposed and conducted by the government in helping to achieve the overall diversity of the workforce, in terms of gender and ethnicity. The 30 percent quota of women in decision- making positions both in the public and private sectors have been introduced to promote gender equality. Yet, greater efforts are still needed to enhance women’s diversity at top management levels as they are still lagging behind the male workforce. The existing NPW continues to divide the Malaysian society, especially with the restriction of Malay privilege in the Malaysian constitution. It should be noted that ethnicity is an important aspect to look into as Malaysian women from different ethnic backgrounds might have different career experiences.
In general, the evidence suggests little knowledge about the career experiences of women senior managers within three different ethnic backgrounds: Malay, Chinese and Indian. This research has thrown many questions into focus and there is consequently a need to supplement the existing knowledge that has been developed from a Western perspective. If the debate is to be moved forward, a better understanding of the impacts of ethnicity amongst Malaysian women senior managers and how these two social categories intersect. This notion is aligned with the research findings from the Western perspectives by Powell and Graves (2003) who argued that ethnicity does matter where women managers who are from black and ethnic minorities may experience greater hurdles than white female managers. It is not always
sufficiently accounted for within Western theories, especially when this research framed by the intersectionality is used to investigate the lives of women in senior management in Malaysia. Thus, conducting a literature review and contextualising this research to a Malaysia setting would allow the researcher to identify the gap between this research and other studies.
CHAPTER 3
WOMEN’S POSITION IN PAID LABOUR MARKETS
3.1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter outlines the theoretical framework utilised in this study of the under-representation of women in senior management in Malaysia. It is focused upon a number of key themes, including, occupational gender segregation in labour markets and patriarchal relations in labour markets and the household. This is underpinned by an intersectional analysis of women in senior management, in relation to gender and ethnicity and the privileging of Malay women in relation to their non-Malay female counterparts. The theory of occupational gender segregation aids the exploration of women’s employment patterns and how this is impacted by private and public patriarchal relations in the labour market and the home. The application of critical mass helps us to understand how the Malay privilege could be one of the leading factors that hinders women managers to hold senior managerial positions. Privilege theory which explains the dominance of white males in the Global North (McIntosh, 1995), is used in relation to the privileges enjoyed by Malays over those of other ethnic backgrounds. Given the differences in cultural setting between Malaysia and the West, many aspects, including political background and societal expectations, in both contexts, need to be considered. The societal context in Malaysia, as has been described in the previous section, necessitates clarification of the theories in Western literature.
The first section examines horizontal and vertical occupational gender segregation and the situation of senior women managers in the labour market. The theory of patriarchy is central within this discussion because it is argued that Malaysia remains a patriarchal society. This is followed by a discussion of ‘critical mass’ in the context of a consideration of women’s under- representation in senior management and the introduction of quotas.The analysis then turns to a critical discussion of the intersection of gender and ethnicity, which seeks to illuminate and unravel the relative privilege enjoyed by Malay women, in comparison with those from a Chinese and Indian origin. An underpinning argument is that gender and ethnicity intersect to reveal how some women from different ethnic backgrounds become more privileged than others (Crenshaw, 1991; McCall, 2005; Collins, 2015). This is an approach that aids understanding of how the simultaneous intersections of characteristics of difference create new distinct subjectivities that produce unique social positions, which cannot be accounted for by adding together the single categories. Throughout this chapter, some of the discussion will be drawing upon Western literature as there is a lack of research on this in Malaysia. It should also be noted that the majority of the literature presented in this chapter was published prior to 2018. The research had been conducted up to 2018 with a one-year extension spent to complete writing up.