The 11th Malaysia Plan and the Denial of Income Inequality

The Malaysian Insider

Rama Ramanathan

Published on 23 April 2015

For reasons best known to himself, the chairman of the Malaysian Rubber Board who happens to be the MP for Jasin, asked the government whether the gap between the rich and the poor was widening in Malaysia. The government’s response was: “No way!”

The government’s response was that Malaysia uses the Gini coefficient to measure income inequality and that the Gini for 2014 is 0.421, which is smaller than the Gini for 2012 (0.431) and for 2009 (0.441). The claim is “lower Gini, therefore lower inequality”.

Yet those who monitor such data know that in 1989, the Gini coefficient was 0.422. So, if the Gini coefficient were the only measure of inequality, the government would have to say that the inequality in 2014 was the same as it was 25 years ago.

In the News: Low Wages Linked to Fewer, Weaker Unions

The Malaysian Insider
BY SHERIDAN MAHAVERA
Published: 4 April 2015

The goods and services tax (GST) which kicked in on April 1 has turned the spotlight once again on the country’s low-wage rut, with economists pointing at the weakening bargaining power of workers, influx of migrant labour and national economic policies as the main causes.

A long-standing problem, experts have said low wages were the result of Malaysia's industrialization policy, which has long focused on the manufacturing sector.  But it also correlates with a steady fall in union membership, in part caused by dependence on foreign labour.

Dr Muhammed Abdul Khalid TMI
pic by Mukhriz Hazim April 4, 2015

In fact, an economist at a recent forum on the welfare of Malaysians, said better bargaining rights for workers, such as through unions, could ensure better wages and benefits. Dr Muhammed Abdul Khalid (pic), who co-authored the United Nations’ Malaysian Human Development Report 2013 (MHDR), said countries with high unionization rates tended to have citizens who were fairly paid.

Union proponents claimed that industrial productivity gains in the past few years have not been matched with a rise in wages, partly because the power of unions to press for them has been diluted by the flood of foreign workers.

The Episodes: Chapter 3 Episode 3 In the Academic Fast Lane is Now Out!

Read it Here

The pace of my academic life continued to pick up even after the dust finally settled on the Baling demonstrations.  Even with the implementation of the Universities and University Colleges Act, the academics on campus tried to maintain a semblance of normality in their teaching and research work.  And with the adoption of the Harun Commission Report, academic terms and conditions of service improved, but the bureaucratization of academia had begun.  Over the next five years I managed to strike a balance between teaching, research and administrative work that were typical of the life of an academic.  But I had kept up such a pace in these activities that Terry McGee, after five years of my returning to Malaysia worried that I might suffer a premature burn-out if I didn’t slow down.   I noted but didn’t heed his advice.  Besides teaching young students, the biggest joy for me was the conduct of policy research.  And there were plenty of these issues on the table in the first decade of the implementation of the New Economic Policy, which was launched while I was still in training overseas.

Read more HERE