KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 4 — The median monthly wage for women formally employed in Malaysia were lower than men, according to the the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
According to the department’s report on formal workers’ wages statistics for the first sector, women workers recorded a lower median monthly wages for three consecutive months from January to March.
For the month of January, male workers recorded a median monthly wage of RM2,800 while the women workers recorded RM2,782.
For the month of February, the median monthly wages for both men and women dropped, with men still having a higher median monthly wage at RM2,600 and women RM2,500.
For March, the median monthly wage increased approximately RM64 for the men and RM45 for the women workers as compared to month of February.
DOSM explained that wages refer to all remuneration in money payable made throughout the reference period to employees.
The wage estimate includes bonuses, commissions, and allowances per the data sources’ definition.
Median refers to the middle observation in a set of data that are arranged in a sequence.
The median wage is used to give a more accurate picture of the “average wage”, as the determination of the median is not affected by extreme values, the DOSM said.
Meanwhile, workers below 20 years of age have recorded the lowest median monthly wages in the first quarters of the year with RM1,500 for all three months.
Meanwhile, workers between the ages of 40 and 49 recorded the highest median monthly wage for the same period.
The group earned a median monthly wages RM3,900 in January, RM3,482 in February and RM3,500 in March.
