Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) has once again raised the issue of families being neglected because wives choose to join the workforce. It argues that there needs to be someone to care for the family, particularly children, and that women are more suited than men to do so.

For those who may not know, our labour figures show that 52 percent of Malaysian women are in our workforce, and the government is encouraging an increase of that figure. And since the head of Isma’s women’s wing is in fact the daughter of economists, she probably understands the argument against women taking a passive role in the economy.

Certainly, someone has to take care of the children in a family, but to say that families need to single out mothers as homemakers is wrong, particularly in current day realities, where we are stuck in what Massachusetts junior senator Elizabeth Warren has explained as the “two-income trap”.

Warren’s book details how the market has been affected with women joining the workforce. For instance, the prices of assets have increased to the point of normalising the need for two breadwinners for each family. In Malaysia, this argument rings true when you consider that household incomes average more than RM6,000 although individual wage figures average a lot less than that. What this means is that it is not possible for the average single-income family to live a life that is without heavy challenges.

Of course, it is a worthy goal for every family to have someone as a full-time homemaker, but it also raises some questions. For one, why should the government issue scholarships and student loans to women who refuse to join the workforce? But then, perhaps Isma has in mind the idea of wives establishing cottage industries or micro-businesses instead of expecting their husbands to be sole breadwinners.

Men and women should be given the same consideration when it comes to parenting responsibilities. If the mothers choose to join the workforce on flexible hours, then the fathers should do the same.
Similarly, there’s nothing wrong with giving both parents paternity leave so that both can learn to care for a newborn.

This would be in keeping with the evolution of society. There should be no gender stereotyping in determining who can be better in the role of homemaker or breadwinner. Also, we should not prevent anyone who wants to dedicate his or her life to being a homemaker from doing so, as long as no one is adversely affected.

At the same time, we should recognise that in Malaysia women tend to be more level headed than men. We have a bigger number of women entering and graduating from tertiary institutions, proving they have outperformed men from an intellectual standpoint. They should be fighting hard for equal wages and they should be breaking glass ceilings in the corporate world.

If they choose to, they can continue to exercise their incredible ability to multitask in the sense of raising their families while working for incomes worthy of their contributions. We’ve all seen such women in action and been awed by their ability to thrive in whatever they choose to do. We need these individuals to lead us to a more prosperous future.

Hafidz Baharom is an FMT reader

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