The gender gap in Malaysia has worsened under Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's tenure, according to the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) report in gender equality across 136 countries.

The report, released over the weekend, ranked Malaysia 102 out of 136 countries based on four different areas - health, education, economics and politics - which Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim noted was a significant dip.

"Before Najib took office, we were ranked 96th in the world, and now we have dropped to 102," Sim told a press conference at the Parliament lobby yesterday.

Malaysia fared the worst in terms of political empowerment, ranked 121st globally, while they did the best in terms of education attainment, ranking 73rd.

Malaysia's Southeast Asian counterparts the Philippines were ranked as having the fifth narrowest gender gap globally, with Iceland ranked first. Yemen and Pakistan were the two worst ranked countries.

More handouts for women but...

NONELanang MP Alice Lau, who like Sim is also from DAP, pointed that Najib formerly served as an acting Women, Family, and Community Development Minister and thus he should have "understood" the plights of Malaysian women better.

Both Sim and Lau said that in the latest budget tabled last Friday, Najib delivered more "handouts" to the women instead of introducing real empowerment programme in order to reduce the gender gap.

They also pointed out that the Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) which was first mooted by the government 10 years ago, has yet to be introduced.

The women's labour force participation rate (LFPR) had also stagnated at 46 to 47 percent since early 1990s, Sim said, and questioned if the government would be able to reach the 55 percent participation target by 2015, given the stagnation rate over the past 23 years.