LETTER | Pakatan Harapan's (Harapan) proposal, now deferred, to institute the Employees Provident Fund (KWSP) accounts for housewives with a RM50 top up from the federal government is timely.

It highlights a neglected fact - that the economic value of work within the house is not fully appreciated by the society. If one hires a maid to cook, clean the house, do the laundry, iron clothes and look after the kids, one would have to fork out at least RM 1,000 per month. A full-time housewife slogs away for free. Hence the proposal.

But isn’t the Harapan proposal mere tokenism? The proposal is that two percent of the husband’s KWSP contribution should be credited monthly to his non-working wife’s account, and topped up with a RM50 contribution from the government.

This does not result in extra money in the hand of the housewife at present. She will have to wait until she is 50-years-old before she can withdraw a third of her total KWSP savings. But housewives in the B40 group (there are 2.5 million of them), desperately need more spending money in the here and now, as the costs of running a household are constantly going up.

If the government is prepared to spend RM2.25 billion yearly (RM50 x 12 months x 3.75 million families) why not spend it in a way that benefits the B40 families right now?

The proposal also does not help create in creating old age savings of any significance. Consider this – currently, 24 percent of a worker’s pay is paid into EPF (11 percent contribution from the worker and 13 percent from the employer). But despite this, more than 80 percent of workers use up their EPF savings within five years of retiring. Consequently there is nothing left for them when they enter their 70s.

If 24 percent doesn’t last five years, how long will two percent last the housewife? If security in old age for women is the aim, then wouldn’t an old age pension scheme of, say, RM 300 per month for all individuals 70 years and above be a much better scheme? That would cost the government about RM2 billion per year at present.

The PSM would like to suggest that direct income transfers, previously termed BR1M, be re-instituted for the 2.5 million B40 families. That would be greatly appreciated! And it would boost aggregate demand by RM3 billion (RM 1,200 x 2.5 million). But we would suggest the following tweaks – RM 100 be credited monthly to the bank accounts of the lady of the household.

For a few reasons – money paid out monthly would help defray living costs, wives are more responsible in spending than husbands, and RM 100 per month to the wife’s account would help to empower her a little more.

As for recognizing the value of unpaid housework that now falls mainly upon women, perhaps a low intensity but long-term mass media campaign that highlights this issue and encourages husbands and sons to chip in and help out might be a better way of both recognizing and sharing out the burden of housework.

And what about the housework done by working women? The Harapan proposal does not address this group. Only working women from the T20 have maids at home to do the housework for them. For the B40 and the M40 families, the working mum has to do a second job of finishing the housework when she gets home from work, but she would not be a beneficiary of the PH scheme.

As women struggle to balance working outside the home with their domestic responsibility, the triple burden faced by women as a result of their triple role in society is a major barrier to women's economic empowerment.

The employer has a responsibility to provide workplace conditions, which is conducive to employees, including female workers who are also mothers. However, in a market economy where the sole purpose of corporations is to maximize profits, often workers rights are set aside in order to minimize business costs.

Thus, the government has an important role to intervene and to ensure that the corporate safeguards the rights of workers including the rights of women workers by providing child care services at the workplace, lactation rooms to support breastfeeding at work for female workers and free government-run childcare centres.

DR KUMAR DEVARAJ is the central committee member of PSM.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.