Economic policies and programmes aimed at uplifting bumiputera may have been "less than successful" in closing the income gap between ethnicities, said economist Yeah Kim Leng.

This is possibly one of the reasons, he said, for the wide gap for average household income between the Chinese and bumiputera, as revealed by government statistics yesterday.

There are many reasons why these policies may have not been completely successful, he said.

The New Economic Policy, for example, had initiatives to create millionaire bumiputera groups, he said, which contributed to widening the income gap between the rich and poor within the ethnic group.

"We have not seen the spillover, the cascading effect, of the small group of the rich enabling the benefits of their prosperity to go down to the poorer, lower income group," he explained to Malaysiakini yesterday.

Yeah is also the dean of the business school at the Malaysia University of Science and Technology and was appointed an external member of Bank Negara's monetary policy committee in April this year.

Benefits those with access

Social mobility for the poor remains low, even for the bumiputeras, Yeah said, because affirmative policies tend to be aimed at those who already have access to projects and opportunities.

He did note that "the glass is still half full", as there are now more Malays in every sector of the economy, including the professional sectors.

"Now we find Malays in every sector of the economy and we have seen a fairly successful restructuring in terms of employment, whereby professional Malays now constitute a larger number," he said.

Another possible reason for the wide household income gap, he mused, is the size of the ethnic groups.

Yeah pointed out that ethnic Chinese makes up a much smaller percentage of the country’s population, compared to the bumiputera.

"So they (bumiputera) have a bigger base, which means it'll be harder to get everybody to become rich," he said.

The Chinese also tend to have smaller families so they can invest more in their children, he elaborated.

Focus on inequality, not ethnicity

However, he stressed that the focus should not be on inter-ethnic economic inequality, but rather on intra-ethnic inequality.

He said income inequality between classes should be highlighted, regardless of ethnicities.

"There are common factors for the growing income inequality between the haves and have-nots," he said.

On Wednesday, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Wahid Omar revealed that the gap between average household incomes is widest between Chinese and bumiputera households as of 2014, at 38 percent.

Malaysian Institute of Economic Research executive director Zakariah Abdul Rashid said yesterday that the household income gap was actually narrowing, albeit at a very slow pace.

"It all started during the Merdeka days. The gap was already there, and in fact, it was larger back then," he said.