40-year-old single father Mohd Khairi goes to work every day worrying about his children’s safety.

Due to his long working hours, his two children, aged 9 and 12, are left to fend for themselves after school, without the help of any family member or a caretaker.

“I have arranged for them to have their lunch and dinner at a food stall in my housing area, which costs me up to RM1,000 per month. They go on their own. As for their safety, I can only rely on neighbours and friends to be my eyes and ears and look out for their safety.

“I'm worried all the time, but there's nothing I can do. I don't have any relatives that can help take care of my children. The best I can do is provide them with enough money to ensure all their needs are well taken care of,” he said.

The single father is not alone in his predicament; working parents are finding it increasingly difficult to strike work-life balance due to heavy commitments at work, coupled with the increasing cost of living.

“I hope any assistance rendered out to single mothers will be also given to single fathers. Same goes with policies,” he said.

The tabling of Budget 2015 on Friday is one that Mohd Khairi is looking forward to, as a ‘special gender budget’ is slated to be revealed, according to an announcement by Second Finance Minister Husni Hanadzlah back in May.

If the proposal goes as planned, Malaysia will join some 100 other countries in the world to initiate what is widely termed as Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB).


'Not just a woman’s budget'

While topics on gender tend to focus on women, GRB is not a budget for women only.

Gender responsive budgeting is meant to bring substantive change, close inequality gap and bring justice to all.

This includes women, men, boys, girls, disabled and groups that do not have adequate or no access to resources - money, service delivery and support services.

“The objective of a gender sensitive budget is inclusivity. This is because different groups have different needs,” said Henry Loh, project director at GRB project under the Penang Women’s Development Corporation (PWDC).

GRB – when incorporated in budgeting processes – is not merely assessed by how much more money is allocated to a particular ministry or sector, he added.

“It is about how the limited government’s resources be allocated in an equitable manner so that so that resources reaches those who most need the support.”

GRB initiatives cut across sex, age, race and class, however, women, still make up the large portion of people in the country that needs the most support.

According to a census carried out by the Statistics Department in 2010, there were 831,860 single mothers in the country.

As for the wage gap, women are drawing a smaller salary average than their male counterparts. Based on the Salaries and Wages Survey Report 2013, the mean monthly salary for Malaysian women is RM1,992 while for men, it is RM2,086, representing a 4.5 percent gap.

Meanwhile, labour force participation rate (LFPR) for women is still low in Malaysia, compared to men. The Labour Force Survey Report 2013 revealed the LFPR for women as a whole marked at 52.4 percent, much lower than men at 80.7 percent.

Out of which, women managers make up only 3.2 percent and women professionals 14.8 percent.

This is despite 68 percent of new student intakes into public higher learning institutions for the 2013/2014 session were female.

What it means is that there is a pool of educated women out there, but they are not entering the workforce, or have dropped off.

Weighing in on the matter, Country Manager for JobStreet.com Chook Yuh Yng noticed that this drop-off occurs sharply after child birth.

“A lot of women choose to be full time mothers after child birth and tend not to return back to work after that.”

“For Malaysia, maternity leave is only 60 days. Perhaps we can look at a slightly longer maternity leave or an option of further leave with half or no pay (but still retaining the job),” said Chook, adding that such measure will help ease the stress and pressure on mothers when taking care of newborns, whilst finding the time to arrange for someone to take care of their newborns.

A gender budget policy, she said, should also take into account policies that can benefit parents as a whole, including implementing a childcare leave policy.

“Allocate a fixed number of days for parents with young children to take off for their child's needs. This can apply to fathers as well as mothers,” she said.

The mother-of-two would also like to see an improved childcare ecosystem in the country.

“We should also look at improving the childcare profession in Malaysia by encouraging professional childcare as a subject matter at tertiary institutions, as well as proving the necessary incentives to set up childcare centres here.

“With more quality, qualified and affordable childcare professionals available, mothers will be able to have peace of mind when leaving their young children at these centres. Income tax deductions for childcare will also help mothers manage the cost," she said

Meanwhile, women's rights group Empower executive director Maria Chin Abdullah wants better policies that provide social safety net benefits, including EPF and SOCSO for parents who work from home.

“Gender budget must not be limited to the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development but has to appear in all ministries as discrimination appears in most sectors.

“For instance, the Ministry of Human Resources has set aside a budget to train women and men to upgrade their skills so that they are more marketable. But at the same time because of socialization, where society expects women to take care of the children, most choose not to work but to stay at home either as homemakers or home-based worker.

“So the Government must understand and reduce the burden of the women by providing child care facilities, social safety nets, and support for home-based women workers,” she opined.


'GRB - not a new notion in Malaysia'

In Malaysia, gender responsive budgeting was introduced at the ministerial level in 2006.

The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development had collaborated with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in a pilot project to implement GRB in five ministries, namely the ministries of education, higher education, human resources, health, and rural and regional development.

Following the initiative, the treasury had issued circulars in the next few years to ‘encourage’ ministries and agencies to use GRB when carrying out programmes and activities.

The latest circular in 2014, urged ministries and agencies to prepare their budget using a gender analysis approach.

“In order to ensure effective gender equality in the ongoing planning and development of the country, ministries and agencies must provide their budget planning using the gender analysis approach,” according to the circular.

According to Dr Cecilia Ng, advisor to the PWDC’s gender responsive budget project, the challenge in implementing a gender responsive budgeting is ‘mainstreaming’ the policy into processes in all ministries.

“The government will have to come up with a GRB statement to say what they are going to do, how they will push for gender equality in terms of allocation of resources to different ministries.

“They will also have to introduce a format and methodology on how GRB is going to be classified in the budget. Basically, the technical aspects, including, analysis, SOPs and KPIs to whoever is going to implement it,” she said.

In January 2012, Penang became the first state to initiate the GRB at the state level through a three year pilot project by PWDC, together with the two local councils - the Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) and the Seberang Perai Municipal Council (MPSP).

Speaking on her experience running GRB community-based initiatives, Ng said monitoring and auditing the programme’s effectiveness as among its ‘weaknesses’.

An outcome-based budgeting, she added, would be the most effective way to achieve the objectives of GRB.

“Line-item budgeting is used at present at the federal, state and local council levels. We should start moving towards outcome-based budgeting (OBB). OBB have goals and if GRB is implemented, then gender equality or poverty reduction should be one of the outcomes.”

The long term objective is to integrate gender perspectives in governance, she added.

“We have to set up a high level GRB committee to be based at the Ministry of Finance to push forward the initiative and move towards OBB.”