The participation of women in the country's labour market constitutes only two-fifths of the labour force even though half of the Malaysian working-age population are women. According to a Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) report, in the 2017 Global Gender Gap report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Malaysia ranked 87 out of 144 countries in terms of Economic Participation and Opportunity, down seven places from 2016. Among the ASEAN countries, Malaysia ranks higher only to Indonesia (108th place) whereas most of the country's regional peers rank significantly above Malaysia, Laos at 22nd, Singapore 27th, Vietnam 33rd and Brunei 61st. "Whilst global awareness of the gender gap in the labour force has burgeoned in recent years, more needs to be studied with regard to the state of women in the economy in Malaysia," according to the report titled 'The State of Households 2018: Different Realities' under the ‘Women in the Workforce — A Work in Progress’ segment.

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