AMNC24 - When Parity Means Growth

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Tian Wei: Well. Good to see all of you. After a very busy morning and a lot of things to do in the afternoon, I see almost a whole like a full house here. So, congratulations on the gender parity issue. Yeah and I see the house is pretty much filled with both men and women – both half of the sky, as we say in China. So congratulations.

Having said that, though, my name is Tian Wei, a TV host coming from a China media group, China Global Television Network. It's my great pleasure to continue, not only a winter Davos but also summer Davos to moderate sessions about gender parity. Today we are talking this topic with a very new lens. As we all know progress in our world today has slowed down over the past few years out of a complexity of issues. So is the advancement of gender parity.

Even though we know very well that our world could benefit from gender parity. For example, adding 12 trillion US dollars to GDP growth, adding even as high as 35% of jobs to some of the economies but still, we are lagging behind our goals. So here we are trying to figure out how we can find the solutions.

As you know, the World Economic Forum always talk about the big issues. But I know every one of you come here about that big issue with a specific entry point. So that is why I am so glad and honoured to be joined by a very distinguished panel on the issue. Every one of them has been contributing to the solutions, by the way, not just talk about it.

So my great pleasure to see is Anwar, who is chairperson of the Social and Economic Research Institute from Malaysia. So good to see you. Because you're doing things, I'm clapping for you. Okay. And go there in the middle. William Warshauer. William is the president and chief executive officer of TechnoServe. Good to see you, William. I know you're serving women entrepreneurs – 60% of the people you're working for are women, so congratulations on that William.

Tian Wei: Last but certainly not least from China, where this conference now is being held, Liu Qian. Liu Qian is now an entrepreneur, she's founder and CEO of the Wusawa Advisory. She has been very vocal women and gender issues here and beyond. So good to see you Qian.

Liu Qian: Thank you.

Tian Wei: Here, I want to say something not huge but personal, if I can. Next year, we're going to see the International Women's Conference being held in Beijing, celebrating its 30th anniversary. I remember when I was quite young, working as a volunteer in the Traffic Direction group, serving for the International Women's conference, back in the year 1995. Me and my friends from all over the world, I only got to know then, had a great time. And seeds for gender equity has been planted even further during that conference and beyond.

We are to celebrate that next year. We have a lot of progress, but also a lot of things to work on. And that is why I think right now, we need to provide some of our specific entry point about how you have been working on this issue. What are some of the things or shall I say, one thing that you remember and you are meandering with right now on this topic? Latest interactions, latest stories, latest case study. Share one or two with us now. Shall we?

Nurul Izzah Anwar: Sure. Thank you so much, Tian Wei and of course, the wonderful panellists and all of you for making time. I think when you ask that, the study that kind of struck me the most was, in fact, we just came from interviewing a group of graduates, female graduates in Malaysia because we want to know what were the challenges they faced, because usually have about 60 to 70% of Malaysian universities filled up with females and they don't really end up in the workforce. And it's interesting to hear, I think the key finding was how much value they place on families.

Basically, sometimes I might feel traditional kind of set of, you know, values and how they feel that even though sometimes it could be challenging, how much more thankful they would be if there was that degree of support. So even if we talk about gender empowerment and making sure they get ahead, they really feel it also has to take into account the traditional context, the kind of family elements. And this includes, of course, fathers, you know, grandfathers, the elderly, not just, spouses.

And I think that's why, for me, when we formulate policy, it's a good time to look at the efficacy or impact on the regulation introduced and how it has been normalized in a way accepted in society, because sometimes, of course, you face pushback. So those graduates, you know, it's they really kind of speak up their mind and give a few suggestions moving forward.

Tian Wei: Very interesting. We need to check the temperature everywhere, including from Malaysia. Earlier, I was talking to someone at the World Economic Forum. They say any AMNC are three layers meeting: global, Asian and also China. So I think we have an entry point about the Asian story.

Go to you William. What are the latest takeaways you have a with your personal stories or interactions on the issue.

William Warshauer: Well, I'll stay in Asia, I think and I want to say how pleased I am to be a man on this panel. It takes men and women working together to get to parity. So we all have our part to do.

Tian Wei: Extra round of applause for both the gentlemen sitting on the stage and also over there in the audience.

William Warshauer: That's right.

Tian Wei: And all of you watching, by the way.

William Warshauer: And everybody out there. TechnoServe, the organization that I lead, is a poverty alleviation organization. Business solutions to poverty has been our focus for the past 55 years. So we work around the world with smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs. And we are, we have explicit targets about our own organization, about the women we work with, to try to at least have half of all of our clients be female, as our moderator mentioned in our work with entrepreneurs, more, almost two thirds of them are now women, which we're very proud of.

But you asked me what's on my mind. So last year, about 160,000 women, increased their income through their association with TechnoServe, either on farming or by small business. But I was recently in Delhi staying in Asia. And I met a young woman named Umeirah. And Umeirah came from a poor family in Mumbai. Her father was a rickshaw driver. Her mother was a cleaner. And, she was advantaged in the sense that, through some cajoling, her father had agreed to send her to university.

She was the only child. The family could afford to send one child to university – it was Umeirah. And she went to a so-called tier 3 university, sort of the the lowest tier of university in India. And while she did well there, the sad thing is that only about 25% of graduates of those universities, gain formal employment.

So the bargain that her family made of saving money and sending one promising child that university was really not being, delivered on. And, also her father wavered and as fathers do around the world, wanted to keep her close to home to help with child care and all the rest of it. And so she was really at risk of never entering the formal economy.

Now, fortunately for her, she was able to enter a programme that helped her gain some skills to get an entry-level job at a bank. And she became a bank teller after graduation. And this is the entry-level job, one of the lowest salaries at the bank. But that salary alone raised her family of six income by 50%. But equally important is that when you're inside an institution like that, you have a path forward, you have a path up. And so, I was I was moved to meet Umeirah.

I think she was an example, on the one hand of the terrible, inequality in labour participation rates, only 33% of women in India are in the labour force. She was an example of, how public education is failing so many women and men and not giving them the skills they need to to enter the formal economy. And she was fortunate to be a part of a programme that allowed her to do that. That has changed I think the course of her life and the course of her entire family's life. So that's been much on my mind as I thought about gender parity.

Tian Wei: Absolutely. These days, we all want a one liner solution. Yeah, but actually that one liner solution is never the solution. It's very important that we take an up close look at all the stories and people around us and know what exactly they are looking for. So thank you, William, for that story.

Go to you Qian. You've been studying a lot about the education, its link to gender parity. What is some of the latest takeaways, you have a personal story or two to share with us about that.

Liu Qian: Thank you for that. So let me try to combine the personal and sort of the theoretical side. And I'll pick up what you said when I was little. So I was born in the generation when China introduced the one child family policy. And I grew up in China when it was, you know, that was a time when China started to open up with the economic reforms. So I consider myself very lucky in that. And, when I look at the world, I see several key defining themes of the century.

One is the rise of China. We're here today. The other one is the rise of women, women empowerment and gender parity. So, back in the 80s, Chinese girls had actually better opportunities compared with before because families then didn't need to choose, who do I send the kids to school? The son or the daughter? So, every girl had equal opportunities in that sense. And then China, the economy grew. So, that made a big impact and me personally.

So I was born in Shandong, where Confucius came from. That's the more traditional side of China. But I studied and lived in Sweden and also UC Berkeley. So very liberal, very gender equal places. And that made me realize that gender equality is possible, even though, like nowhere in the world we are fully gender equal. But that taught me that things are possible and that gave me a lot of hope.

I think looking at my own stories and also that partly helped me to progress with my studies. So I'm an economist by training. I've always focussed on labour economics, on the importance of education, because even though some people thought, oh, you're just a girl but my family didn't believe that, they believe that a girl can be just as smart and successful and capable as boy. So I was fortunate enough to be able to go to good schools, study around the world.

Tian Wei: So, it's a personal, very personal story.

Liu Qian: Yes.

Tian Wei: A testament of what happened.

Liu Qian: Yes. And then actually, when I started to look at economics, I realized the importance of human capital. So when we look at macroeconomic models, we look at capital, land, technology and human resources. And if anything, people read Wealth of Nations and actually the first paragraph and actually the first sentence starts with "Labour and that is human."

So for us to be able to be well educated before we can contribute to the society, that's something I believe is the most important one. So if I were to argue for the growth of the global economy, I would argue one of the most fundamental thing is investment into human capital. Is to send people to school and especially send girls to school.

So I'll share some simple economic data. So, economic research, look at the past 50 and 60 years global in different countries. And what economists have found are that, number one, on average, if you spend investment on to, for instance, the US stock market and securities, annual return is 2.4%. But if you send someone to school, you're guaranteed an 8.8% annual return for the rest of your life.

So we're talking about 2.4% versus 8.8%. So that is telling us, in the medium to long term investment into people, it's always a lot higher return than investment into finance product itself. And I'm very pleased to share that among the 8.8% returns on girls are a lot higher than on men.

Tian Wei: We love the economists. They work with numbers. It's always convincing. On the other hand, the how to translate that number potential into policies. That's always an angle very important for all the societies.

Izzah, you yourself work on that a lot. And you also earlier talk about the traditional culture – how it's having an impact on the career and life choices of women. So I really wonder, you know, on the one hand, holding high the gender parity, on the other hand, the flexibility that society need to show to women and honour their gifts already existing.

How does that work in a society like Malaysia? What are the policy advice you're providing to the current administration?

Nurul Izzah Anwar: I think, you know, when you hear the kind of economic benefits, it's a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the trend and not just Malaysia but also developed nations, is concerning. The first, you can see how gender polarization is taking place among young men and women. Young men are less academically oriented but extremely right wing. Whereas young women, now, going up the tertiary ladder but becoming far more liberal and open-minded and of course, progressive. And that, of course, creates some degree of tension. This has taken place in South Korea, China, Europe, you know, America and of course, Malaysia is not, you know, exempted.

Number two, we talk about even what it calls horizontal gender segregation, which means you're also divided. There's gender bias in labour because most women will work, not just the informal sector – most of them have suffered so much when the furloughs took place – but also in the healthcare sector, education sector, which traditionally pays less. And, you know, because of this, again, men, you know, to top it off of this unequal pay conundrum or problem that they face.

And a third, back to what was mentioned, Liu Qian, is the fact that in STEM, the numbers, the women, girls are dropping off. And of course, I always encourage my daughter, follow your dreams. You know, you want to be an economist, good on you. Right? But the thing is, we need a lot of girls being interested and pursuing STEM. Back in the day, when I was, a young student. You know, engineering was a chosen vocation. You have up to 70, 80% female engineers. But that trend, that reality is now really, you know, completely going in the opposite direction so the landscape for me is challenging.

It doesn't mean that, you know, we're not happy with progress is just that, the world is becoming, far more, I think not as fully supportive, in terms of society normalizing these ideas, within the different stakeholders. So what do we do?

From government perspective, you see, you know, the introduction of sexual harassment laws. You have, in fact, you know, women now can take maternity leave up to 98 days. Men, paternity leave up to seven days. But the reality is, some men get sacked because they took off days to take care of their newborn. And again, women are, usually not employed because of this reason.

So when you talk about the interface, the engagement with the private sector, I think you have to monitor closely because, issues of equal pay can also be included within the whole framework of data protection, for example.

Regulation alone is not enough to normalize it, to make sure it is accepted across the different sectors. So this normalization process really requires all of us to kind of work closer together to the point for data protection specifically mandated so that there's wage transparency at any given moment, right. Are you paying your engineers, female and male, the same? And I bet you're not, right?

But the last bit is the issue of displacement. When you say women in Penang, in Selangor, in many regions in Malaysia, they are becoming village heads, they are becoming heads of municipalities. They are becoming local councillors. But sometimes it ends up with the elderly village head – the old man that everyone is accustomed to – to lose his or her job.

Okay, so his kind of place in society and that disruption, of course, encourages a lot of backlash. So how do we place, you know, not just this older men but boys? The emphasis by the government is to make sure you invest in the technical, vocational educational sectors. Because, boys, if you're aligned, that's fine. As long as there is career mobility, they get paid adequately. And I feel that every single moment this is like a, it's a moving target.

Tian Wei: Yes.

Nurul Izzah Anwar: It's challenging but at least there's ways we can go around about this.

Tian Wei: That's a beautiful description about the realities today. I think it's not just about everybody agree on the big principle. Yes. Everybody agree, it is even politically correct to do that.

However when you implement it, when your benefits is being impacted, when your employer, when you are a village head, when you are working on your whole budget, what kind of choices would you make and how would you implement those choices? Those are the most difficult questions, I think needs to be asked. Of course we're making progress, right?

So we've already realized what is the right thing to do, but whether to do it or not, to do it in the right way. That's another question to you, William, about exactly that. Tell us how you are doing, what have you found out? The current state of sophistication we really need to have when we talk about gender parity?

William Warshauer: Well, look, I you know, I'm not sure if everyone's read this World Economic Forum survey from last year, but it's, I would recommend it but it makes very depressing reading. Very depressing to see the project, the progress slowing and stalling out.

Tian Wei: And that's why we have you on the stage to talk about how we make it not depressing. Yes. Go ahead.

William Warshauer: And, so we certainly see some of the themes that come out in the report in our daily work with women farmers and women entrepreneurs. And, I think that the fact that it is on the agenda is encouraging.

The fact that all of us here are having this conversation means that the people in this room will go back and influence their governments, their companies, their companies' suppliers and partners. And so that's encouraging. But it's got to really make change. It's got to filter down. It's not just enough at the top, right, for us to talk about it. And so those conversations have to be had with your procurement department.

I'm seeing a guy over there who procures a lot of things every year at his company and throughout the company, people have to be able to raise it explicitly and make it explicit.

Tian Wei: That's the principle. Let me just translate that into a more detailed question for you.

William Warshauer: Yeah.

Tian Wei: You are trying to, in your daily work to link the big organizations, especially businesses globally, with rising entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized companies, especially for women to grow as business leaders in the latter part. So when you were in the discussion with former group of people, which is the big multinationals, much larger enterprises, how do you discuss with them about translating that into their policies, into their reactions, into their interactions with the smaller and medium-sized companies?

William Warshauer: Well, there's probably two cases. There's a multinational that's aggressively interested in it and is seeking out women-led, women-owned businesses. And we can connect them. We run accelerators for just those kinds of businesses. And then there are simply businesses that want the best deal, the best partner. And so they're you've just got to focus on competency.

The thing that's super encouraging is that we know many of the hurdles that women in business face: much harder time getting access to credit, much harder time getting access to land, much harder time – they're still asked to do all of the work at home, even when they're running of business. And yet what we see consistently is that women-led businesses perform at or better than those led by men, despite all of those additional challenges that women face. And so the capability is better.

Tian Wei: What exactly do you mean better? Because people want to hear what exactly you mean by better?

William Warshauer: Well, whether it's return on capital, whether it's growth of the business, however, you want to measure that. The women's business are performing at or better than those led by men, despite the significant challenges they face.

And so if you're looking to connect with a partner who just is the best business in the area, we can easily recommend women-led businesses and we focus on incubating and accelerating many of those. So there's different cases but I think we can all be encouraged by that.

There's a huge cultural problem here. And you talked about it, and both of you can speak to it from a personal perspective, but I see it time and again. And changing cultural norms is enormously difficult, slow policy. Problem rather. Sorry.

Tian Wei: We used to have a blanket consensus, we still have, about gender parity. But how to translate that consensus once again into real actions on a daily basis?

Qian, as an economist, how do you see that, especially, for example, where you come from?

Liu Qian: So let me pause for a second on the concept of gender parity. A lot of people think about that and especially without gender stereotyping, men thinks that that means women are taking over their jobs, women are becoming more senior than them. And let me take this opportunity to clarify that that's not the case. We don't want to be more senior than men.

We just want equal opportunities and equal possibilities basically. So let me start from there and I'll give you some examples of why gender equality and women empowerment is not just good for women but also good for men and also good for our future generations and very good for our global economic growth. So I'm going to quickly quote a few econ studies.

So I talk about more education. Investment means higher incomes for women. And there are also study. There's one particular studies looking at US census data, finding that on average, when a woman takes one additional year of education, her husband incomes grows about 18%.

Now we can talk about how that causality comes into place. Is it because she's going to be able to help him better access to information, making better decisions? That's side effects, right? Like this can be hours of discussion.

Tian Wei: Not fair for those women who are not married.

Tian Wei: Well, that's another side point, I'd be very happy to go into.

Tian Wei: Yeah, exactly.

Liu Qian: But as I said. So, number one, education for women is good for women. And I just quoted that more education for women is better for men as well. Higher income for men. And also, we see a lot of studies showing that higher education of women means better results for the children. That means, the kids, for instance, premature birth rates drop significantly. The kids tend to grow taller than the other kids. And then also, health wise, for both the women and their husbands, there are all kinds of mortality rates also reduces.

So what I'm trying to say is that really when you invest in women, when you invest in women's education, you don't just have better women but you also have better men and better children and better long-term economic growth. So I see no reasons, not so ever that we don't want to invest more in women. And that again, gender parity means parity.

We're not trying to beat men down or anything like that. But by empowering women, we truly have a more sustainable and better growth for the whole world.

Nurul Izzah Anwar: Can I just, I just wanted to add on, in terms of even having regulation in place, having policies in place to empower women, even from the front of, you know, it's not just, women in top levels of positions. I think the issue is making sure that across the social strata, you address the needs of women.

One of the ways that we saw the government do this was introduce the... fund for housewives, that's for women in, you know, who are basically caregivers. Number two is also looking at the fact, across the social strata, you want women to be part and parcel in the STEM area. So there's a national policy encouraging that.

But I think the challenge is, again, sometimes, you know, when we kind of focus on the certain subgroup, there's the reality of blended families, single-headed families, families not necessarily the mother but still caregiving everyone.

So in terms of policy regulation, I think we have to be a bit more adapt.

Tian Wei: Nuanced.

Nurul Izzah Anwar: Yeah. Nuanced also flexible. And the problem is maybe sometimes some of the existing laws also require tweaks. And it goes only so far in order to kind of change society.

So in that sense, I feel that, after the pandemic, more the reason we look at the empowerment of women but more in terms of making sure that safety nets are in place. Right? To address the needs of women from the lower income, the more vulnerable segment.

Tian Wei: More sophisticated approach, more diversified approach and some common consensus is so much needed. When I look at the report coming from World Economic Forum every year, it's very consistent for a long time and that should be congratulated. Also, some of the major and rising economies are also doing their survey, national survey, every year, as long as – there's an economist sitting over there – we look at these numbers, we have a very clear, logical approach to all the issues that we're facing today.

Having said that, though, some of the numbers we're looking at are only part of the story. That's what I take from your answer. For example, do you only look at the top when it comes to leadership? Do you also look at the middle part of those women in the "pipeline" or in the supply chain for leadership. And how, for example, education can be done from the early stage so that the seeds are there and they can grow?

Another question related to what you just said. I was in conversation with one of our audience members. She's sitting here, right here, right before we come into the Better Zone place. How to create an ecosystem for women leaders already existing to create better ecosystem for all, not only for women, but also for the other side of the sky?

So all of these questions, we never answered them before, ladies and gentlemen, this is the very first time we are facing it today, right? With this beautiful, blanket consensus I always say about gender equity in our world today. So, Qian, I would like you to briefly answer that question. And also William as well, before we open up to the floor to our audience who have much better and much smarter question than I do. But to briefly touch on that, please, Qian and William.

Liu Qian: On the leadership side or women in general.

Tian Wei: In general. And also some of the benchmarks we are using. How can we be more sophisticated not only in understanding the issue but also providing the solutions as Izzah earlier mentioned. Not, yeah, please.

Liu Qian: I think in a way we have so many frameworks and criterias and KPIs in discussing this already. Is now time to actually focus on getting them done, like instead of how do we increase the numbers but rather to focus on the work itself and then the results will come.

So I think that will be most important. And can I just also quickly pick up on what Will was saying? When we look at the reports, we find a bit frustrated. I'm not at all. I mean, I am frustrated but at the same time, I'm extremely hopeful because I look around the world, I know girls are working very, very hard. They're going to school, they are working hard. They're joining the labour force participation. In many countries where you can see, there are more women getting graduated or college degrees more than men. So this gives me a lot of hope.

So when I look down in the next 10 or 20 years, I think no matter what kind of framework and criteria we set up, we will make huge progress down the road.

Tian Wei: Okay. And William?

William Warshauer: Well, I just want to support the point that you raised in your question about networks of professional women. One of the businesses, kinds of businesses that we support in Africa, in particular, are food processing businesses that are taking the grains and making them into flower oils or what have you. And there's a network of, I think, 90 women who are leading some of those businesses, a very active network and that sort of support from peers facing some of the same challenges has proven to be very effective.

But the last thing I would say is just to support your point, I can't think of another subject matter where the research across different geographies and different socioeconomic groups is as unanimous as it is about the benefits to the household when women control income and assets. It is dramatic, and it is true anywhere in the world that I've seen the research done.

So that for us is the motivation, a large part of the motivation and wanting to make sure that more women are in charge and earning more so the households can do better. They're investing in education, they're investing in nutrition, they're investing in the kinds of things that help the household in the long term.

Tian Wei: Thank you very much for the three of you, sharing some sparkle with us and raising great questions. I would love to also invite insights and thoughts coming from our audience. You can state who you are and also ask and state your position or ideas, please. Yeah, we have many hands. So this lady first and then we go there. Yes. And gentlemen, feel free to raise your hands as well.

Audience member 1: Thank you very much for this panel and lovely to meet all of you. My question is for Miss Anwar. It's nice to to see a leader from the region speaking about gender equality. I know in the Malaysian context, you have a lot of women working in the informal economy.

Palm oil is a huge industry in Malaysia. A lot of women are working in those places. What steps and strategies is the Malaysian government pursuing to ensure that women in the informal economy have a safe space to work, given that gender-based violence and sexual harassment are very rife in these industries?

Tian Wei: Izzah is not the government spokesperson but she will come in from her own perspective on that. Yeah. Thank you very much. We collect a few questions and then we can answer them together. It would be more efficient. Yes, please.

Audience member 2: Thank you. My name is [unidentified name], I am from Japan. And, as you know, Japan is almost bottom of this parity thing. But my question is, it's not about general principles, it's more like how to translate those principles into action.

One question popping up in the even Japanese society is, should we, how to implement a quota? The quota at university entry, the quota at the parliamentarians, the quota in the boardroom. And then the discourse is quite an interesting conversation and tension among almost everybody. So that then, of course, the men, many of them feel that they are now threatened.

And then that the women who have been maybe already established also they feel that they may have to fight it too and then that the people who may be selected also feel noticeably too comfortable because they may be perceived as compromised.

So, how do you, do we have a good example, how we can introduce this kind of affirmative action system?

Tian Wei: Any one you want to explain?

Audience member 2: Particularly interesting maybe Anwar.

Tian Wei: Okay. All right then the quota debate once again. Please.

Audience member 3: Hi, just want to pick up on what Miss Izzah Anwar mentioned about how certain men may react to more progressive policies that we're putting into place. Maybe building on that, just wanted to hear views from especially William and Qian on how you've seen – because I come from Malaysia also so I can see how it happened, how it's happening in Malaysia – but wanted to see from your point of view.

I think a lot of things rely on narratives and for young men, there is a crisis of masculinity in many societies on how you actually live up to masculinity in a world where parity or gender parity is the norm and ought to be the norm.

I wonder if you could share from your experiences, what are some of the strategies to take men along? Young men especially, to buy into it wholeheartedly and feel as invested in gender parity strategies or goals alongside – maybe fact-based or database arguments. Is there something emotive that you've seen to be successful?

Tian Wei: We will also ask for your answer a bit later. Yeah. So maybe one last question if we can. Because. Where? Yeah. Sorry, I see more hands.

Audience member 4: Hi. I'm from Brazil and there we have a challenge around women having to take care of the health of their families. So if the husband gets sick, if their parents get sick, their children get sick. So issues around health, many times take women off work and they have to stop working.

So just wondering how this also plays a role here. And if you could share some examples to also bring this to the perspective?

Tian Wei: Caretaker of the family, how to balance everything? Yeah, yeah, I hear my girlfriends talk about it all the time. Yeah. Thank you for raising that question. Let's just ask this round of questions first. And if we have time, we can go to another round.

Okay. So for time sake, we need to be brief. First of all, palm oil and other informal industry women's role, policy wise, please Izzah.

Nurul Izzah Anwar: Okay. Thank you. Natasha, thanks for the question. I think, you know, in terms of the informal economy, it's very crucial for us to not just protect women but looking at it from the precarity, the job precarity element. So for now, there's, of course, the 80% provided for them to basically contribute to the employees' retirement fund. Employees provident fund. Sorry.

So for those working in informal sector, the gig economy economy specifically, which brings the question the burden is still on government agency, right. The bulk of them making sure when as they get older, after they leave their particular work space, they are least living with dignity.

And I think it goes back to do we don't want to consider laws, clear-cut laws that extends across to even sectors that are traditionally dirty, I think, difficult, what's the other D? Yeah, dangerous. And I feel this right now, the government is taking on a lot of, kind of the bulk of the burden but perhaps need to look at how the support can be rented from the private sector.

Now, the other bit is also loans in terms of female entrepreneurs, you have weekly loans dispensed of with by a minority. They've been very successful. They've been there, I think.

But at the same time as Mohamed Nasheed set up. Yeah, the Grameen Bank and of course, high rate, they pay it back. And it's been wonderful. But of course, it doesn't mean that should be the sector that they're stuck with because, at the end of the day, it's still challenging, when, you know, prices and cost of living escalate.

But for me, in that sense, there's, a lot of focus, just we also need to look at how do you ensure the existing subsidies and the huge subsidies debate from the usual fuel diesel linked to facing them into more productive sources of growth? And that's what Malaysia's actually, working towards?

Number two, quota. Very heavy debate, I would say some advocating it but at the end of the day, will that have again result in unintended consequences? Because what you want is that kind of sense that women are being celebrated at every position, not just, you know, for example, are you paying your cleaners enough. Are we respecting and allowing to at least retire with dignity?

So these are the things for me, where we are also pushing hard for workers, whatever it may be, to at least have the ability to enjoy the retirement fund. Just for context, 40% of Malaysian workers are not part of the Employees Provident Fund, so that's one of the agendas that Malaysia was facing.

Number three. Men's reactions. I just want to say, it has to be inter-sectoral because usually youngest daughter will take care of ageing grandpa or ageing mother. I see this everywhere. Some even give up on their studies and because it will be linked to the degree of intubation that patients go through. So sometimes even in aged care, how many geriatric experts that you have.

Right. So even the way you look at, about sort of the health care industry, it will have an impact on home care and of course households. So I think intersectorally really when we look at it, even looking at how far Malaysia's ageing, it will definitely have this onerous burden on women, if we're not tackling it in a more sophisticated and of course, holistic manner.

Tian Wei: You don't have to answer three or four questions, or to choose one or no one. You're doing a very good job, by the way. I'm just for the other two because we only have 2.5 minutes left.

So would you kindly pick some up question? Maybe quota question for Qian. Is that possible? Yes. Go ahead.

Liu Qian: Are we giving the last sentence to a man?

Tian Wei: Yeah. Okay. Oh it's okay.

Liu Qian: I'm kidding.

Tian Wei: If you want one of the final words is okay too.

Liu Qian: Let me pick up on the masculinity part. I think, as I said earlier, we need to let the men and the society feel that gender parity is not about beating men down or anything like that but actually, it's good for you guys as well. So that when you want to wear pink, you can wear pink. When you want to cry, you can cry like we do not discriminate against you.

So it's important to let the men think that is actually good for you. And so that's on the concept level, on the actual practical sort of more day-to-day level. I think there are times that we say, oh, you're not supposed to do this. We don't want men to do this. I think it also helps when you give them motivations. Economists always talk about motivations. So when you do something right, we praise you, like let's praise them, you know.

Nurul Izzah Anwar: We them the clap for him.

Liu Qian: Give them the carrot so they'd be more interested to get the reward and do more of that because they grew up in a time – I'm speaking to the female audiences here – they grew up in a time where they don't have the perfect sort of male models. So they're lost as well.

So let's be a bit more understanding and tell them what we want. At the same time, give them the carrots and the sugars and motivations so they're more motivated to do better. I think the concept and the practicality, it takes a bit of time but I'm very convinced that we can achieve that.

Tian Wei: Right. Why don't we break the narratives for both gender and beyond? You know, there are narratives that we women, quote unquote have to fill in and gentlemen have to fill in as well. And these narratives are becoming big burdens are all our backs. And why are they even matter in a way? Right.

So why don't we encourage one another to break all those narratives that are not helpful, that are old, quote unquote, and not should be cherished, but rather be trashed? No. These can be a question for all of us. That's a great thought coming from you. William, final words. We have 30 seconds, can you do that?

William Warshauer: Not really. Your question is a really great one and sort of shows, I mean, culture is already hard and then this is an overlay on culture. It makes it even harder. There's no panacea. There's no easy answer. There are some funny, simple things you can do that we do.

We work with hundreds of thousands of farmers, smallholder farmers every year and increasingly, we never do a training. We only train now in couples. The man and the woman together, which helps ensure that both the partners have skills, which helps make sure that the man knows what the woman is learning and hearing and vice versa and helps them share success.

But I've seen all sorts of reactions to this. I've seen when I used to work in Myanmar, I asked a woman who was earning a lot of money – new money in a new enterprise – well, what her husband thought. She said, I think he loves me a little more. Unfortunately, that's not always the reaction. But let's hope it has more and more. Yeah, I'll leave it there.

Tian Wei: That's all these beautiful solutions. Whether they are social experiments, whether they are numbers and data to be shared and whether they are the policies coming from the society that needs to be adopted and advised on to the government, all these can be part of the solution but none of them can be solution if we, every one of us, are not working together to figure out the solutions.

So I want to thank our three distinguished panellists for their own efforts and for their collective wisdom. Thank you so much. And our wonderful audience who are so sophisticated about this issue already. Thank you very much. And final words, if you want to have a final words, yeah. Maybe just one phrase to go...