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Abstract—Structural changes in the economic
transformation of Malaysia from an agricultural-based to an
industrial-based economy after the 1970s, were accompanied by
an increase in the employment of women. This resulted in two
predominant trends: firstly, an increase in dual earner families
and secondly, the number of female university students
surpassed males. However, due to the difficulty of juggling
work and home, there has been a low female labour force
participation of less than 48 percent in recent years. Trying to
reconcile the issue of work and home, many economists and
policy makers argue that workplace flexibility could be a major
tool to retain talent and women in the labour market. This study
uses evidence from a primary survey conducted among 14
organisations in the services industry in the central business
hub in Malaysia. Self-administered questionnaires were
answered by women on their perception of the relationship
between flexible working arrangements and work life balance.
We conclude that flexible working arrangements are preferred
by women who are more educated and earning a higher income
while the MANOVA analysis shows that flexible working
arrangements have the potential to achieve work life balance.
Index Terms—Flexible working arrangements, Malaysian
women, women and labour, workplace flexibility.
Structural changes in the economic transformation of
Malaysia from an agricultural-based to an industrial-based
economy after the 1970s, were accompanied by an increase
in the employment of women. This led to an increase in dual
earner families in the country. On the other hand, although
currently, Malaysian women make up more than 63 percent
of students in tertiary educational institutions, less than half
of them get absorbed into the workforce. Women’s
participation is as high as 65 percent in the 25-29 years age
group but women often drop out of the workforce between
the ages of 30 to 34 years due to household and family
responsibilities [1]. For example, in the 2011 Labour Force
Survey, 67 percent of women cited this as a reason for not
seeking work [2]. As such, one of the objectives in The Tenth
Malaysian Plan (2011 - 2015) is to increase the female labour
force participation from the current 47.6 percent to 55
percent by 2015.
Very few local companies in Malaysia have implemented
flexible working arrangements (FWAs) while many
Manuscript received September 15, 2013; revised November 27, 2013.
Geetha Subramaniam is with the Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
(e-mail: geethamaniam@gmail.com).
John Overton is with the Development Studies at Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand (email: john.overton@vuw.ac.nz).
Bala Maniam is with the Finance at the Sam Houston State University,
USA (e-mail: GBA_BXM@shsu.edu).
multinationals are very proud to highlight this workplace
reform. The more common modes of FWAs in Malaysia are
flexi-time, working from home, teleworking, permanent
part-time and career break.
In an attempt to understand the low participation of women
in the labour force in Malaysia, this paper seeks to examine
the possible impact of workplace reforms on women’s work
life balance. This is investigated in the context of whether
demographic and socio-economic factors have an effect on
women's preference for FWAs at the workplace. This is
further examined to see whether FWAs may have an impact
on women’s ability to juggle work and home to achieve work
life balance. This paper finally concludes with discussions on
family friendly policies and long-term measures which might
have an effect on women’s continued participation in the
labour market.
A. Women and the Labour Market
Labour economists note that life cycles of female labour
force participation (FLFP) rates vary more than males and
differ between each country and are generally lower than
men’s at all stages of life. The “twin peak” phenomenon is
observed in most countries and involves two periods of
relatively high participation separated by a trough of lower
rates in the central age groups. It is closely related to marriage
and the family [3]. However, this phenomenon varies from
country to country. Developed countries such as Japan and
South Korea continue to have a double peak with a trough at
ages 25-29 years, although this used to be at 20-24 years in
1990. The drop in FLFP rates has shifted to five years older
and is not as sharp as before, “indicating later childbearing
and childrearing as well as more women opting to continue
working” [4]. However, this is not the case in some countries
with relatively better pension and welfare systems.
According to the neo-classical model of labour supply, a
primary factor affecting female LFP is female wages. Several
studies have included wages in women’s LFP equations.
Aaberge et al., (2006) estimated significant positive effects of
female wages on participation [5]. At low levels of economic
development, women have high employment rates, primarily
in agriculture or self-employment. As incomes rise, women
leave the labour market, in part because of a preference that
women not work outside the home in manual labour. But
with greater development, and increases in women’s human
capital, white-collar opportunities become available and
draw women back into the labour force.
The neo-classical theory of household choice and resource
Flexible Working Arrangements, Work Life Balance and
Women in Malaysia
A. Geetha Subramaniam, B. John Overton, and C. Bala Maniam, Member, IEDRC
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International
Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2015
DOI: 10.7763/IJSSH.2015.V5.417
I. INTRODUCTION
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
allocation is useful to explain the factors which influence the
labour force participation of women. As the aim of all
households is to maximise total utility by optimal allocation
of resources, some factors will have a greater influence on
women’s decision to participate in paid work outside the
home [6].
Women work due to economic and social reasons. As far
back as the early 1980s, [7] clearly spells out that it was
women from poor households in Malaysia who resorted to
wage labour to supplement family income and in the course,
were affected by wage differentials and gender
discrimination. In this study, it was noted that poor
female-headed households who have very little access to
alternative childcare support systems have a high opportunity
cost of working outside and this situation actually aggravated
their dual-role burden.
In another study among college students, it was revealed
that the majority of both men and women wish to participate
in paid labour. This is an indication that the dual career
family is likely to continue to be common in the future.
However, this study showed that gendered expectations are
still prevalent when it comes to the division of labour at home
and work.
Paid work is now an integral part of women's lives. Not all
women leave their jobs after childbirth [8]. Many debates and
discussions on what causes women to exit the labour market
point to family responsibilities either directly, due to
dependent care or indirectly, due to employer policies [9],
[10]. However, the fact remains that inflexibility at the
workplace and inability to balance work; life and home are
important factors why married women leave the labour force
[11].
What influences a woman to leave an organisation after
childbirth and not return has been a debate among
organisational behaviourists and feminists and a few
interesting points can be deliberated on. Theoretically,
women who exit the labour force are making a rational
decision anticipating the outcomes of alternative courses of
action. The major assumptions in other economic theories is
that people are rational when making major decisions,
including quitting a job. Therefore, it is argued that women
will not leave their paid jobs without a reasonable reason and
a rational individual will choose the alternative that is likely
to give them the greatest satisfaction.
Flexible Working Arrangements and Work Life Balance
The workplace of the future is one that will be driven by
new energy and with vision as workplace flexibility and
worker-friendly management strategies are becoming more
important. FWAs are alternatives to the traditional “9-to-5”
workday, the standard work week, or the traditional
workplace.
Most of the reasons why female employees want FWAs
centre on family responsibilities and work life balance [12].
Studies in the United Kingdom [13] and the United States [14]
reveal that “spending time with family” was the most popular
reason why women opted for FWA companies. According to
[14] women face many constraints as they choose how they
will balance work and family and what priority they will give
to one over the other at particular times.
Employing the theory of work adjustment of Dawis,
England & Lofquist, (1968), [16]’s study tried to examine the
relationship between FWAs and quality of working life and
employee productivity. The study showed the attitude
difference in a FWA organisation explained in terms of stress
associated with work arrivals being reduced and the possible
increase in performance.
Studies have shown that an organisation which values its
employees and recognises the importance of work life
balance stands to win in terms of staff morale and
commitment [17]. Employers should begin by revamping
their recruitment policies to facilitate work life balance.
FWAs, if used with quality practices at the workplace, can
actually become the core of human resource management and
lead to good work performance and higher productivity [18].
As argued by [19], FWAs are beneficial for both employers
and employees and they also further described how highly it
is valued by elderly parents, whose children work under
flexible working arrangements.
Recent trend studies show that part-time work influences
the ability of mothers with young children to balance work
and family responsibilities. Mothers will be less likely to
leave the labour market if more part-time jobs are available.
This concept of part-time jobs and family friendly policies
such as flexible working arrangements will enable more
women to contribute to both, work and home. With more
flexible work and part-time work, literature suggests that
possible benefits for these young mothers will be better
monitoring of the children and more quality time with the
children [20].
In the neighboring country of Singapore, the Civil Service
introduced flexitime as early as in 1970 with the main
objective of easing traffic congestion during peak hours. But
today, it is favourably received by staff as it enables better
work life balance and the scheme has helped to better attract
and retain valuable talents.
While FWAs have many benefits such as the ability to
juggle work and home, men and women seek them for
different reasons. For example, [21]’s study found that for
senior management men, FWAs help them resolve
commuting time, whereas for the women, FWAs are utilised
more for family responsibilities and better quality of life.
Existing literature shows that women’s participation in the
labour market is affected to a certain extent by their
workplace environment which affects their work life balance.
Therefore, to retain women in paid labour, it might be
pertinent to look at whether FWAs may reconcile work and
home responsibilities, which is the main focus of this study.
This paper seeks to examine the experience and perception
of working women in flexible and fixed working
organisations in the context of work life balance (WLB).
This study was conducted in the Klang Valley, the central
business hub of Malaysia, using a quantitative method
adapted from [22]. Based on the statistics from the Labour
Force Survey Report Malaysia, 2011, six sub-groups in the
services sector which had a substantial number of working
women were identified. This was further narrowed down by
using the Malaysian Employers Federation list, where
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International
Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2015
III. METHODOLOGY
organisations in the services sector which had FWAs and
non-FWAs were identified.
Using the purposing sampling technique, a total of
fourteen organisations which have FWAs were identified,
and these organisations were sub-grouped further into
Finance, Logistics, Petroleum Shared Services,
Telecommunication, Educational Institutions and Small and
Medium Professional companies. Random sampling was
employed to reduce selection bias within each organisation,
whereby respondents were selected at random by the Human
Resource Manager of each organisation. A total of 500
self-administered questionnaires were distributed, 250 to
FWA organisations and 250 to non-FWA organisations. The
response rate was slightly lower for the non-FWA
organisations compared to the response rate from FWA
organisations. The total sample size was 396, which
consisted of 57 percent respondents from FWA organisations
and 43 percent respondents from non-FWA organisations.
The questionnaire consisted of 4 parts: Part A consisted of
five items on the demographic profile of the respondents;
Part B consisted of two items on the income level; Part C
consisted of three items on family responsibilities; and Part D
consisted of four questions on WLB where respondents
indicated on a scale of 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly
Agree) on their perception on statements with regard to WLB.
Data was analysed using the SPSS 20 software. Cross
tabulations and the MANOVA analysis were used to analyse
the findings.
A majority of the respondents (86%) in this study were
interested in FWAs at the workplace. The results indicate that
socio-economic status affects female employees' desire to
take up FWAs at the workplace. Women holding a degree,
earning an income above RM7000 (1USD = RM3.10), and in
the higher occupational status were the ones who were more
interested in FWAs.
To examine the first objective of whether demographic and
socio-economic factors have an effect on women's preference
for flexible working arrangements at the workplace, cross
tabulations were done. Table I shows the summary of the
cross tabulations and the significance at 10 percent. In terms
of demographic profile, FWAs were preferred among the
Chinese ethnicity, women who were in the 30-39 years age
group and among married women. However, none of these
demographic factors were statistically significant. In terms of
socio-economic factors, it was found that women who were
at the management level, earning an income above RM7000
and having a university degree, were more interested in
FWAs at the workplace. And these findings were statistically
significant at 10 percent.
As for the second objective, whether FWAs may have an
impact on women’s ability to juggle work and home to
achieve WLB, a multivariate analysis of variance was done.
Based on focus group discussion with women’s groups, and
women employees, items which measure work life balance
were included in the questionnaire. There were four items for
work life balance. Respondents indicated on a scale of 1
(Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) their perception on
statements with regards to the three selected indicators.
In this study, the independent variable "Working
Arrangements" was being tested against the dependent
variable "Work Life Balance" to determine whether working
in organisations which have FWAs have an effect on WLB.
For the concept of "Work Life Balance", an exploratory
factor analysis, a dimension reduction technique, was
performed using a varimax rotation [23]. Based on the
eigenvalues, only one factor with value more than 1 was
retained in the construct WLB. In this analysis, the KMO
value for WLB was 0.6, which is considered to be acceptable.
A single factor was extracted that explained more than 63
percent of the variability in the data. The norm is that at least
50% of the total variance must be explained by the factor.
The factor loading, KMO values and explained variation are
shown in Table II.
TABLE I: SUMMARY OF CROSS TABULATION RESULTS OF DEMOGRAPHIC
AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
Variable Sub Group Interested
in FWAs
%
n/N
Ethnicity Malays 183/215 85 0.744
Chinese 82/92 89
Indians 66/78 85
Age 20-29 143/167 86 0.846
30-39 136/155 87
40-49 44/52 85
50 and above 18/22 82
Marital Status Married 216/250 86 0.470
Single 125/146 85
Occupational
Status Clerical Level 64/92 70 0.000*
Technicians 17/18 94
Officers/
Executives 163/182 90
Lecturers 49/55 89
Management
Level 46/47 98
Personal
Income RM1000-
RM2000 112/141 79 0.012*
RM2001-
RM3000 77/91 85
RM3000-
RM4000 36/42 86
RM4000-
RM5000 19/20 95
RM5000-
RM7000 43/45 96
Above RM7000 41/42 98
Educational
Level SPM/ “O”
Levels 60/81 74 0.000*
STPM/ “A”
Levels 20/24 83
Diploma 71/89 80
Degree 145/153 95
Post-Graduate 45/49 92
* Significant at 5 percent
TABLE II: SUMMARY RESULTS FROM FACTOR ANALYSIS
Construct
No of Items
KMO Explained
variation
WLB 4 0.6 63 %
Using the MANOVA test, it was found that the mean for
work life balance was p = 0.025, which shows significant
difference between women in the FWA organisations and
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International
Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2015
IV. FINDINGS
p-value
non-FWA organisations. The MANOVA test showed that
working arrangements had an effect on women’s well-being
in terms of work life balance.
Evidence from this analysis shows that FWAs have a
positive effect on WLB which might have a predominant
effect on women's decision to work in paid labour. Three
main conclusions which can be drawn from this study are:
Firstly, quantitative analysis reveals that socio-economic
factors have an effect on women’s uptake of FWAs in the
workplace. Higher educated women who are holding
university degrees, and earning a higher income with higher
occupational status are more interested in FWAs at the
workplace compared to women who do not possess higher
education.
In a knowledge economy, human capital is given
paramount importance as the knowledge worker’s
competencies are a key component of value in realising
organisational goals. This in turn relates to the impending
issue of women leaving their careers to care for their families
as a serious economic issue, as these women are mostly
young and educated women in their mid-thirties. This
conforms to micro level studies done recently [24].
Secondly, findings show that women perceive that the best
benefit of FWAs is a better relationship among family,
children and siblings. This arises from the better WLB
achieved among women who use FWAs.
This conforms to studies of teleworkers in Singapore by
[25] who also found that more family time and less
commuting time were the main reasons women prefer
flexible time and flexibility in location. This is an indication
that FWAs offer female employees time flexibility, less
commuting stress, more autonomy and better job satisfaction.
Finally, in terms of demographic and socio economic
factors, even though FWAs do not statistically have any
significant effect on WLB, it was the women in the 30-39
years age group who were having caring responsibilities who
preferred FWAs.
This is due to the patriarchal values which still persist in
the Malaysian culture where the women are responsible for
household chores and caring responsibilities as well.
Although this study has several notable contributions
which are relevant to FWAs, WLB and low participation of
women in the labour market in Malaysia, several issues can
be investigated further. Firstly, the sample size could be
increased. Secondly, this study focused on the services sector,
further studies could be done to examine primary and
secondary sectors.
What does this all mean to Malaysian society in general
and Malaysian women specifically?
Many working women have a serious issue with WLB.
This research findings reveal that the two main reasons are:
firstly, the inability to juggle work and home well and
secondly, the patriarchal views that home is the responsibility
of the women, which still very much exists.
Some implications of this study are as follows:
Firstly, there is a pragmatic need to align labour market
policies with prevailing and future family structures. In this
sense, the government has to provide an enabling
environment in a more institutionalised way for childcare
facilities which are more affordable and reliable.
Secondly, awareness needs to be created as to how WLB
can be achieved by men and women who work in the paid
labour market.
Thirdly, and most importantly, there needs to be attitudinal
shifts in the society as family-friendly policies alone are not
enough to ensure WLB. The stereotype of a woman as a
homemaker should be challenged and society should move
towards a new level of thinking where caring and sharing are
shared responsibilities. Though this has to start from the
home, employers also need to take a step forward by
providing more family-friendly policies which not only
benefit women but also the family.
As the former US Secretary of State announced, “So often,
it takes only one woman to make a difference. If you
empower that woman with information, training, or a
microloan, she can lift up her entire family and contribute to
the success of her community. Multiply that one woman’s
impact by a hundred or a thousand, and perhaps a million
lives can change”.
As for policy recommendations, firstly, FWAs such as
flexi time, working from home, permanent part-time and
teleworking may allow women with caring responsibilities to
reconcile work and family responsibilities. Secondly, though
FWAs are very beneficial to women and society, they come
with some limitations as well. Hence, it is not a simple
concept which can be offered to all but it is a policy which
needs to be configured well and offered on a case-to-case
basis. Last but not least, the challenge of a successful
implementation of FWAs lies collectively on employers,
policymakers, and society in general.
As Malaysia moves towards achieving an industrialised
nation status by 2020, many policies set to bring women into
the labour force show the government's increasing concern
on this issue. Even though patriarchal concerns in the home
front need to be addressed, the equally significant issue of a
paradigm shift in the working environment to facilitate
women’s juggling of paid and unpaid labour, needs to be
delved in further.
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International
Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2015
V. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
VI. POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
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Geetha Subramaniam is a senior lecturer on
Economics at the Faculty of Business Management,
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia.
She obtained her Ph.D. from Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand in the area of Development
and Economics. Her research interests include labour
economics, women issues and development
economics.
Balasundram Maniam is a minnie stevens piper
professor and Texas State University system regents’
professor of Finance at Sam Houston State
University, USA. He obtained his Ph.D. in Finance
from University of Mississippi. He has published in
over 150 peer-reviewed journals and presented in
over 250 international and national conferences. He
was also the recipient of the Excellence in Research
and Excellence in Teaching awards at Sam Houston State University in 2003
and 2008 respectively.
