Putrajaya urged to use gender-based lenses for Budget 2022
Putrajaya has been urged to factor in poverty among single mothers and children in formulating Budget 2022.
In a statement today, Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar said the need for such an approach was reflected by her office's 'Multidimensional Poverty Index Report 2021' (MPI).
This report studies 332 families who receive welfare aid from the Permatang Pauh MP's office, which found female heads of households are...
Putrajaya has been urged to factor in poverty among single mothers and children in formulating Budget 2022.
In a statement today, Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar said the need for such an approach was reflected by her office's 'Multidimensional Poverty Index Report 2021' (MPI).
This report studies 332 families who receive welfare aid from the Permatang Pauh MP's office, which found female heads of households are far more deprived than their male counterparts.
Single mothers have lower educational levels with a mean income of RM1,451.71 per month, 31.9 percent lower than their male counterparts.
The report assumes an adjusted poverty level of RM2,151 income per household per month. Therefore the report assumes that 47.2 percent of the population in Permatang Pauh are below the poverty line.
Nurul Izzah said the MPI also concluded that 60 percent of those surveyed could not afford enough food for their children.
The MPI is a four-month pilot project involving the Permatang Pauh MP's office and Fatimah Kari, former professor of economics and director of the School of Poverty and Development at Universiti Malaya.
The goal was to provide an alternative and realistic method of measuring poverty rates based on the dimension of basic needs among poor households, especially in view of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In view of this, Nurul Izzah said a gender-based approach was thus necessary for planning Budget 2022.
Progressive taxation
She said the government should also consider universal child benefits - between RM100 and RM150 per month - as recommended by the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI).
"The government will have to take a serious look at progressive taxation as a mechanism to finance sufficient aid and a holistic safety net for the rakyat - windfall tax, for example - as suggested by KRI in its recent report," she said.
Absolute poverty in Malaysia is defined as RM2,208 income per household per month. This definition was set in 2019.
As of 2020, the poverty rate was 8.4 percent, up from 5.6 percent in 2019 - just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
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