The official theme for Labour Day 2025 in Malaysia is "Pekerja Kesuma Bangsa”/ "Workers Are the Noble Soul of the Nation"
NIAGA SPOTLIGHT Labour Day Special focuses on often overlooked key industries - specifically care professionals such as nurses, contract hospital sanitation workers, domestic workers and social workers.
Anis Farid, Research Project Manager, RE:CARE, Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) and Vaneezha Muniandi, Executive Director, Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW) discuss critical issues impacting our Care Workforce and actionable strategies to address the mounting Care Crisis as Malaysia ages amid demographic changes.
NIAGA SPOTLIGHT Labour Day Special focuses on often overlooked key industries - specifically care professionals such as nurses, contract hospital sanitation workers, domestic workers and social workers.
Anis Farid, Research Project Manager, RE:CARE, Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) and Vaneezha Muniandi, Executive Director, Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW) discuss critical issues impacting our Care Workforce and actionable strategies to address the mounting Care Crisis as Malaysia ages amid demographic changes.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to Niaga Spotlight with me, Tamina Kausji. Niaga Spotlight takes us through
00:13the week in economic analysis and future affairs. Now, this week on future affairs,
00:18it's a Labor Day spotlight on the care workforce. So as we mark Labor Day 2025,
00:24we stand at a very pivotal moment in Malaysia's journey towards economic equity and workers'
00:29rights. Today, we turn our focus to a workforce that is often unseen, yet undeniably essential.
00:36We're talking about the care professionals who uphold the very fabric of our society.
00:41In Malaysia now, the care sector is predominantly feminised, with women constituting the majority
00:47of care professions such as nurses, contract hospital sanitation workers, domestic workers,
00:53as well as social workers. Yet, this demographic reality is met with systemic undervaluation.
01:00Now, the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planet Unit, or MAMPU for short,
01:07reports a staggering shortage in one of these professions. Malaysia has only one social worker
01:13for every 8,576 people. Now, in contrast, Singapore has one social worker for every 3,448 people.
01:24Another snapshot of care professions. The Ministry of Health projects shortfall of over 43,000 nurses
01:31required to meet the demands of new and existing hospital facilities. Now, these figures are, of course,
01:37part of a broader concern, with the country facing an estimated shortage of 113,472 nurses by the end of
01:442025. Health Minister Datuk Sri Dr. Zulkifli Ahmad has also warned that the nursing shortage could reach
01:50nearly 60% by 2030 if current trends actually continue.
01:55Nyaga Spotlight today discusses critical issues impacting our care workforce, as well as actionable
02:00strategies to address the mounting care crisis as Malaysia ages amid demographic changes,
02:06all of which make these services ever more integral to both our national and social well-being.
02:13I now have the absolute pleasure of welcoming Anas Farid, Research Project Manager for ReCare
02:18with Women's Aid Organisation, WAO, together with Wanisa Muniandi, Executive Director with the
02:24Malaysian Association of Social Workers, MASW, who joined me now live in the studios. A very good
02:30morning to the both of you. How are we doing? Good morning to you too. Fantastic. So it's really
02:35wonderful to have you both in here, especially in conjunction with Labor Day. Anas, perhaps let's
02:41first begin with expanding a little on the feminized nature of care professions, which is also what
02:50leads to the fact that it's systemically undervalued, both economically and socially too.
02:55Yes. So this is definitely something that we noticed and we knew, which is really what began the ReCare
03:03Project, which is a nationwide research project that we started in 2022 at Women's Aid Organisation in
03:10collaboration with academics from the University of Alberta, University of Malaya and stakeholders as well
03:16from the Ministry of Health and Talent Corp. As part of the Women Rise Initiative, which is funded by the IDRC in Canada, as well as other Canadian research bodies.
03:24So as you mentioned, we know that care work in Malaysia is feminized, meaning more women are
03:31taking part in care work, whether it's paid or unpaid formally or informally. So our goal with ReCare
03:38was to really understand the feminized nature of this care work and how do care workers manage their
03:45professional care responsibilities with their personal care responsibilities before, during and after the pandemic in particular, to ensure that the lessons that we learned during the pandemic are actually taken into account for future crises preparedness.
04:00So our focus then is on the paid care workforce. So we're looking at the three sectors, health care, namely doctors, nurses and hospital cleaners, social care, so social workers, as well as those who provide care for children, the elderly and people with disabilities,
04:17as well as domestic care. So we're also looking at domestic workers from Indonesia and the Philippines.
04:24So in our view, these are essential care workers because they were the ones who needed to spring into action during the COVID-19 pandemic in their various capacities, and we believe it's important for their work and contributions to be recognized.
04:36I think Malaysia is very security focused when we think about crisis preparedness or disaster response without taking into consideration the people who take care of us and support us and how they are also essential to crisis response.
04:53So all of this to say is that from our research, one of the biggest things that we did was a survey with 1,500 respondents.
05:02And I can tell you the survey involved the care workers from the occupations that I mentioned, and 75% of our respondents were women, which indicates the very feminized nature of this workforce.
05:14Absolutely. And obviously, all of these professions also require immense amounts of skill, emotional labor, as well as combined with physical effort.
05:24We'll also go into the unpaid care work that naturally also quite comes with the fact that most of the respondents who are care work professionals are also women then.
05:35But first of all, Vanessa, I'd actually like to move into talking more about social work, but I'd like to actually preface that with starting with another data point that I picked up on recently.
05:46So annually, the World Bank's Women, Business and Law Report, it tracks the state of work.
05:51Malaysia also happens to be one of 178 countries globally which maintain legal barriers that prevent women's full economic participation.
06:01I actually want to connect this back to something which the Malaysian Association for Social Work, with yourself as its Executive Director, has been strongly advocating for.
06:12The tabling and passing of the Social Work Profession Bill.
06:16Tell me more about this struggle.
06:18Okay.
06:19Thanks, Tamina.
06:20I think before even going to, you know, tabling of the Social Workers Bill, I think what I would like to address is what social workers are, like who are the social workers.
06:29So social work is actually a trained profession where these social workers are trained in practice-based profession, basically.
06:37So what they do is that they work with these vulnerable communities which involve B40 community, orang asli, elderly people, person with disabilities, women and children.
06:49And what do they do is that they work from the psychosocial aspect, so from the point where they conduct assessments and provide assistance for the survivors.
06:58So just to give a brief example on how social workers function is that, for example, if there is a domestic violence survivor, say if she comes with her children, right?
07:08So what the social worker does is that she will conduct an assessment with this client.
07:13So this assessment is the psychosocial assessment where she will assess the client's needs and she will provide the assistance accordingly.
07:21So it will start from bringing her to the police station, launching a police report, doing the follow-ups with the investigation officers and so on.
07:30Secondly, it will also involve hospitals where social workers will actually accompany the client or refer to the hospitals and go through the process with them to assess their injuries and so on.
07:42And if there's any future further follow-ups, then the social workers will also assist them with that.
07:49And thirdly will also be school transfers and so on.
07:52So since there are children involved, they have to work with the schools to do school transfers and all that for the children and work very closely with JKM, with our welfare officers department.
08:05So the social workers actually work with them to get the protection order, to do the placement for the children and women and so on.
08:13So moving on and also what they do is that they do empowerment programs for the client, sometimes not just empowering them but also helping them to get a job or empowering them to get skills development program, go and join those programs.
08:28Moving to that next step in their lives.
08:30Correct, yeah. So the social workers job don't just stop at this point where we assist them or accompany them but it also go to a point where we make sure that the client is independent later on.
08:42So again, coming back to the bill, why is it crucial for the bill is that…
08:46Exactly, because everything that you've just mentioned and thank you so much for giving us the full context of what basically a day in the life of a social worker in Malaysia might look like.
08:55There is clearly what I can discern a very standardised framework for all the applications as well as the duties which go into the work that social workers do.
09:08It is also defined as social work.
09:11So henceforth, of course, why has a bill that's been drafted as early back as 2010 still struggling and not yet in parliament?
09:20I think it's because of the recognition, the lack of understanding in the community as well about what is social work, who are the social workers and also the awareness, the lack of awareness among people on social work.
09:33And also if, you know, the bill actually gets passed and all then later on, there's actually a lot of investment that needs to be done in this field, especially to give training and certification programs that staff has to join and improve themselves on.
09:48Absolutely, because I think it also helps you to have clear ethical guidelines and maybe even competency benchmarks so that you can actually further standardise everyone.
09:58Because, of course, social work is not only required within the Klang Valley area, right?
10:03For example, thanks very much for that, Vanessa.
10:05So, Anis, perhaps moving back into looking at poly crises.
10:10We, of course, experienced a very recent one, which was the COVID-19 pandemic.
10:16Now looking and fast forwarding to the Madani government's approach to navigating poly crisis.
10:22But at the same time, let's now frame it within the context of empowering women's role in the care economy.
10:31The care economy has been spoken about in much greater detail, especially since the end of December 22 onwards.
10:38But where are we today now in 2025, mid 2025, with relation to care work professions that are already existing?
10:47I think I want to take a step back and sort of highlight one of the biggest findings from the re-care study.
10:56Of course, these findings are still preliminary as we are still finalising our analyses.
11:00But I think this touches on an important point in your question about the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact that it has had on our care workers.
11:09I don't think we've really taken stock of that because care workers had to have extended hours, for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
11:17They were working day in, day out, nonstop responding to the crisis.
11:21And this has obviously had an impact on their well-being.
11:24So what we found is that amongst the care workers that we surveyed, three fourths of them actually experienced a drop in their well-being during the pandemic compared to their well-being levels before the pandemic.
11:38When we're talking about well-being, it encompasses physical, mental health, as well as job satisfaction, work life balance and the support that they had for their paid and unpaid care work.
11:47Now, of these three fourths that did experience a drop in their well-being, two thirds actually have not recovered to their pre-pandemic levels of well-being.
11:57And what we're seeing within the data is that amongst the men and women is the women actually who have been slower to recover compared to the men.
12:06And what this means and what we're seeing is that one in three care workers have in our survey responded that they are planning to leave their current position within the next five years.
12:21So this is a very big concern, I think, given that we already have a care deficit in Malaysia.
12:29We don't have enough care workers in the country.
12:33But what this is telling us is that beyond a care deficit, we may be heading towards a care crisis.
12:39Clearly, and I don't think you're overstating or exaggerating because compounding factors are actually pointing us towards that direction.
12:48I would argue that one of the most formalized of these sectors, which is the nursing profession.
12:53We heard what the stats are and the fact that we are already losing a number of nurses, not due to the fact that colleges and institutions are not producing enough qualified nurses,
13:04but also them then opting to perhaps not work in Malaysia and go perhaps to Singapore or to other other countries where perhaps it's better regulated, also involving economic support and fair compensation.
13:19Right. So I think these are really crucial issues as well, Anis.
13:23What specific strategies could then be maybe implemented to ensure that women care workers are adequately supported and also protected in future crises?
13:34Because it's always about, you know, not just future proofing, but learning from what we went through during the pandemic.
13:41Absolutely. So we know that care work is gendered.
13:45In that traditional gender roles and norms have always positioned women to undertake this care work.
13:52But this also means that care work is undervalued.
13:56And we know this because half of the respondents in the survey are in B4D income households, meaning they are undervalued, underpaid for all of the work that they do.
14:06So in terms of adequately supporting women and ensuring that our care workforce is resilient as we move forward.
14:15The first is obviously to recognize them as essential care workers.
14:19They are essential to our country.
14:21Recognizing them as essential also brings dignity to the job that they are doing and how they have supported us as the backbone of the nation, especially in times of crisis.
14:32Recognizing them as essential would also support in having clear plans about which care workers are needed where and for what crisis response, which brings me to my second point.
14:45We need to also ensure that they have adequate support for their unpaid care work.
14:49I think a lot of times we view care workers as just people who are doing this job.
14:55We forget that they have lives outside of the work that they do, families that they also have to take care of and that they care about.
15:01So in undertaking the ReCare project, we did focus group discussions with women care workers across the country.
15:09And there was this very salient theme that women feel as though they are alone and they have to do it all by themselves.
15:16It's a sort of super woman syndrome where they feel like they don't have anyone to really depend on and rely on, which speaks in volumes about the amount of care support that's actually needed by our care workers.
15:29Absolutely. So, of course, to bring it together from a policy approach that would definitely entail gender sensitive wage reforms and perhaps also gender sensitized cash transfer programs during actual ongoing crises.
15:44From there, moving into Vanisa. So, of course, we mentioned the huge deficit in the number of care workers, social workers ratio wise when it comes to Malaysia's population, close to one to 9000 of our population.
16:00From MASW's perspective, Vanisa, what needs to be done to actually ensure that commensurately we can actually increase the number of social workers who are then there available in the Malaysian layer
16:14market to meet the needs?
16:16Okay. I think the first thing to do is to table the bill because, again, it comes back to recognizing the profession. So, I think because of that, that's why, you know, even most of the graduates from social work are not actually in the field working as social workers.
16:33It's mainly because of the recognition issue. And secondly, it's also because the salary is low for the social workers because, again, they don't recognize the profession as a profession itself.
16:48So, that's why the salary is low. And therefore, it doesn't really, you know, empower people or motivate people to actually be in this field or even when they are, they don't tend to last quite long.
17:00Because like what Ani said earlier, sometimes the support is needed. There's a lot of support that's needed and there's a lot of resources needed for them.
17:07So, to have that work-life balance for social workers, it's also very important because, like I said, this job requires the social workers to be mentally, physically and emotionally invested.
17:18So, it's not a job that, you know, it's nine to five job where you can do any time. So, it involves a lot of aspects.
17:25Yeah, absolutely. I think another factor I'd like to pick up on, which we lightly touched on earlier, Vanessa, is how there's also a lot of geographic disparities between the distribution of social workers as opposed to population needs.
17:41One factor you'd already mentioned was the low pay. On average, it's less than RM2,500 per month, whereas, of course, our most recently established parameters for a living wage is RM3,100.
17:54Let's also talk about perspectives that MASW has picked up as being critical for geographical disparities.
18:03Kuching in Sarawak, of course, you know, a service population of potentially 2.4 million people doesn't even have five registered social workers.
18:14Tell us about these issues in greater detail.
18:16Yep. So, if we see right now, JKM is located in every state, right?
18:22So, there's actually child protectors, there are social workers there who assist clients.
18:26However, there are NGOs, there's not much NGOs, like you said, Sabah, Sarawak, there's not much NGOs to assist survivors over there, clients over there.
18:35So, they all depend, and sometimes NGOs work on their own, so we don't really know who is doing what work at certain point.
18:43So, it also comes back to, you know, JKM has less social workers and then if, I mean, registered social workers and if, let's say, NGO social workers are registered and given the license, then it will actually help the community over there.
18:58So, in any areas, not just Klang Valley, but also outside of Klang Valley.
19:03Exactly. I can think of perhaps from a policy approach, maybe expanding recruitment and even fast tracking training.
19:11Training, would that perhaps actually work for areas which are, of course, outside of the urban centers to help increase the ratio of social workers?
19:19Yeah, definitely. Since there are already people practicing social work, right, but they don't know it's actually social work and they are not, they don't really have...
19:28So, bring them into the formalized form.
19:30Correct, yeah. So, that's something MASW does actually. So, we provide trainings and consultations for NGO who already have social workers or case workers in ground who's actually doing that work.
19:41So, we actually provide them counselling, trainings and workshops as well.
19:46Fantastic. Vanisa, Anas, thank you so much for the conversation and so far, don't go anywhere.
19:51We come back after a short brief break with Niaga Spotlight's Labor Day Focus.
19:58Welcome back to Niaga Spotlight. Still with me, Tamina Kausjian.
20:11Today for our Labor Day 2025 special, we are focusing on Malaysia's care workforce.
20:17Anas, continuing on with the conversation.
20:19So, the re-care study by WAO emphasizes the need for, of course, resilience in Malaysia's essential care workforce and infrastructure.
20:27Ideally speaking, let's now break this down into what this ought to look like in the very near future, if not as soon as possible.
20:36So, I think one helpful framework in our research has been the International Labour Organization's 5R Framework for Decent Care Work, which outlines 5Rs that are important in making care work decent work.
20:52So, the first is recognition, and I think that's really the main theme of the conversation that we're having today is the need to recognise those who are in the essential care workforce, especially under-recognised professions such as social work.
21:07But also to reduce, so the second R is to reduce, which is to reduce labour intensive tasks.
21:14The third is to redistribute, which is shifting care responsibilities from women to other members of the family or society.
21:23Reward, ensuring that care workers are adequately compensated for the work that they do, as well as represent, ensuring that care workers and what they need and want are reflected in decisions about them and policies about them.
21:38So, when we're talking about supporting care workers and ensuring that the care workforce is resilient, I think one R that is important is redistribution in supporting the unpaid care needs of our care workers.
21:53And it's not just about redistributing from members of the family, it's really also about shifting from the public, from the private sphere rather, to the public sphere.
22:02So, we need more government involvement in creating infrastructure that helps also care workers access these supports.
22:10As I mentioned, 50% of our respondents are in the B40 communities, which means they fall out of certain benefits and reliefs that are given to those who pay taxes, right?
22:23So, if they are not even benefiting from the work that they provide, who is taking care of our care workers?
22:29And I think that's an important question that we think about, and that's why the other R of rewarding is important, ensuring that care workers are paid a livable salary.
22:39Absolutely. Perhaps if I can pick up on one specific demographic within the paid care workers.
22:48There are also, of course, informal and migrant care workers, many of them women who work specifically in the domestic care work sector.
22:56So, let's talk about the importance of formalizing and protecting also these somewhat informal care workers in the industry and some of the, of course, issues that have come and rose into prominence from the research of re-care.
23:12Definitely. I think a lot of times when we position domestic workers and domestic care as part of the care workforce and the care economy, there is a bit of pushback because I don't think people really realize the contributions that domestic workers give to our society.
23:31A lot of women, for example, would not be able to engage in the formal labor force if they didn't have domestic workers that were supporting them in their homes.
23:40And we know domestic workers also during the COVID-19 pandemic in households that had domestic workers.
23:46Obviously, they were the ones taking on the bulk of like the disinfecting, the taking care of the sick.
23:51And we know that we have a shortage, for example, of elder care facilities, elder care institutions, care for people with disabilities, things like that.
24:01And a lot of the times this care also falls onto domestic workers.
24:04So they really do make up a great but they absorb a lot of the care work that we can't find like public services for, which is why their recognition is essential.
24:17The problem also is that domestic workers are not, for example, even included in the Employment Act.
24:22So sometimes they are not even, there's no enforcement around like minimum wage for them, for example.
24:29So sometimes you'll find domestic workers who haven't been paid in years.
24:34And the regulations around the working conditions of domestic workers is not as present, for example, with other care sectors like health care and social care.
24:46Exactly. And because it is quite often invisibilized, at least to broader society and even the government's eyes,
24:53it then, of course, ends up in another host of potential abuses, which domestic workers, especially if they're migrant
25:02and perhaps on the precipice of being legal versus not having formalized documents that it then brings about.
25:09Thanks very much for that, Anis. I think it's also a very good juncture at which to also emphasize the need for investments in public care infrastructure.
25:18You'd mentioned the fact that domestic care workers, of course, take on many of the duties besides just domestic work per se,
25:27which also includes childcare, includes elder care, sometimes also the intersections of disability care.
25:34So all of these are really critical issues, which I think more and more Malaysian society is becoming sensitized towards.
25:41That brings me to Vaniza.
25:43So speaking once again, and now I'm digging deeper into compensation, fair wages for social workers.
25:50Now, civil servants on one hand are set to, of course, receive a substantial salary increase.
25:55The compensation for social workers, as we just mentioned, does remain disproportionately low.
26:01So let's talk about how governance systems can now reframe it with connection to the fact that social work is a non-negotiable sector as a profession and as a need for Malaysian society.
26:17So I think number one, again, coming back to the tabling of the bill, recognizing the profession and having a regulatory body for this so that the service that we provide for the clients or the survivors is standardized among all sectors.
26:32Right now, we are talking about private and public sectors.
26:36Right. However, we are serving the same population.
26:39We are serving the same group of people.
26:41And it's important that the standards, the competency standards is same across all, regardless of private and government.
26:50Right. Yeah. So that's something that we need to do is that tabling of the bill and to ensure that the regulatory body is there.
26:57And second is also to have investment or budget to to improve for continuous improvement of the care workers or social workers as well so that they can continuously improve themselves through trainings or accreditation like any certification programs and so on.
27:16In that way, that can also help them to increase their salary.
27:20Absolutely. And also perhaps the recognition of social work as an essential public service on par with the more medicalized healthcare sector.
27:29Would that also help you feel?
27:31I think definitely because, like I said, social workers are placed in education sectors, medical sectors, and they are supposed to be placed in school sectors as well.
27:42So if we invest in this field, it will definitely help the community and the government as well.
27:48Because by doing this, we will actually reduce the social issues in the community and that will also reduce the dependency on the government later on.
27:56So which means there's probably, you know, have a less chances of us to, you know, have a rehabilitation center and so on.
28:03Instead of that, we can invest in this kind of our staff itself.
28:08Exactly. Speaking of investments and staff, Monisa, perhaps you could provide us with a snapshot of the type of caseload burdens which individual social workers face, particularly in urban hubs, let's say perhaps Kuala Lumpur or Selangor.
28:23What does that look like?
28:25Basically, like we saw the ratio, right, 1 over 8,000, that's for let's say government, JKM officers.
28:34However, we look at private sectors, they are actually doing more as well.
28:38How many NGOs are there, right?
28:40For example, in Klang Valley, we have WAO, we have AWAM and so on.
28:44But how much they can take?
28:46They are actually attending to about 2,000 clients per year.
28:51But there's only much that they can do, right?
28:54Yeah, exactly.
28:55So there's many intersections whereby which we can perhaps then move towards promoting public awareness and respect for the profession.
29:03Because also we have seen this very interesting, not just pushback, but actually feedback mechanism.
29:10When there is increased public awareness of the actual roles of social workers, that can also lead to furthering the efforts of advocacy.
29:19Some ideas of that perhaps.
29:21Yeah, also having informal, sorry, formal complaint mechanisms where there's actually a body that actually supervises the social workers.
29:31So if there's any complaints that need to be raised or any improvement that needs to be done, then it can be done through this.
29:38And also creating awareness about social work itself will actually help the community.
29:43Exactly. Because once the public, I think, understands the impact of social work, then it naturally becomes something which the general public wants as a non-negotiable.
29:54It could even be something which comes up in campaign or election manifestos, perhaps.
29:59Knowing that, say, for example, a specific area, an Adun, for example, has several critical social issues that have been identified.
30:08So they probably need a higher ratio by this many more social workers.
30:13Thanks, Vanisa.
30:14Anis, coming into the Recare studies, a very interesting multi-sectoral approach, which of course collaborates with various stakeholders.
30:22Tell us more about the opportunity for this collaborative model to be expanded.
30:27And here we'd like to focus on including more diverse voices and perspectives to ensure the intersectionality of cared workers' experience is actually reflected in any upcoming legislation or policies.
30:43Absolutely.
30:44So within the initial grant itself, there was actually a requirement to involve decision-maker stakeholders.
30:53So people within government that could help support the policy uptake with the idea being that it could, since the project has been like around three years now,
31:05having them invested over the life course helps them also more invested in putting things through forward.
31:12That said, that's obviously coming from a top perspective in terms of like bottom up.
31:19We have actually also involved care workers in our research as research associates.
31:23So this is part of a participatory approach where the care workers themselves were actually the ones, for example, who led the focus group discussions.
31:32So they were doing data collection.
31:35They also helped us with like interpretation and analysis of the data that they collected.
31:40And this is really helpful because as researchers, we might not know what exactly it is that care workers need.
31:46For example, when we're talking about how important social workers are, I think one of the biggest issues in our lack of recognition and awareness of what social work is,
31:57many of them actually face a lot of barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic to do the work that they needed to do.
32:03For example, to deliver the food baskets, things like that.
32:07So there is this important need of involving the care workers in the research so that their perspectives and the struggles that they went through can be recorded as data.
32:20Because if it's not, if they're not involved, it just becomes like something that's anecdotal, something that we hear about.
32:26But to actually process it into data, I think is important because then it becomes something that we can present to policymakers.
32:33So in terms of making the collaborative model more inclusive, I think it also helps to speak to, for example, care recipients.
32:44We recently did a roundtable discussion to share our recommendations with the care workers.
32:49But we also invited people with disabilities because they are potential care recipients of people who provide care for people with disabilities.
32:58And I think that also enriches the perspectives within the research because then we can also consider what are the needs of the recipients of the care work.
33:07Exactly. Now, what this is actually speaking to me is that there's also a need to strengthen multi-sector partnerships.
33:14Now, there are, of course, several ministries that have supported the research and study.
33:20Tell us more about perhaps some ideas around how this could form a national advisory panel or consultative working group that can then actually harmonize both strategy, resources and also policy implementation in the near future.
33:37I think that would be obviously like our goal and something that we would want.
33:42But the nature sometimes of government is also to be very siloed.
33:47So bringing everyone to a table would be important through something like a national care council or something like that, which could have representatives not just from like ministries and agencies, but also from the care workers themselves.
34:01Representatives from associations that can bring up the concerns of care workers, for example, like MASW should be involved in something like this national care council because they know what social workers in Malaysia need.
34:17Whether or not this is something that's feasible obviously depends on political will.
34:24But I think given the great interest that there has been in the care economy, anything might be possible.
34:32We can remain optimistic.
34:34Yeah, I think we have the opportunity to remain optimistic, especially because care policy proposals and evaluations, they have the opportunity now to be gender and intersectionality impact assessed.
34:47From there, Vanessa, perhaps one last area of discussion before we wrap things up.
34:51Now, Malaysia's changing, shifting demographics and aging population is, of course, a reality.
34:58We're no longer anticipating it. It's already happened.
35:01And our aging population is projected to reach roughly 17% of the total population by 2040.
35:08What are some ways in which MASW imagines that social work will not only be transformed,
35:17but also what needs to be prepared for to ensure that social workers are able to adequately address and work towards equitable, not just opportunity for themselves,
35:30but services for the people who are going to be increasingly older, but also living at intersections of poverty as well as disability.
35:40I think to address this, Tamina, I think what MASW would do is we will continue to train the front liners.
35:46For example, like front line front liners are not just government staff, but also NGO staffs as well.
35:54So we will work closely with them and to continue to provide workshops and trainings for them to ensure that how do you deal with elderly individuals?
36:02What kind of support that you can provide for them? Caretakers as well, not just social work, but I also mean like caretakers as well.
36:09So we will continuously provide consultation trainings and workshops for NGOs to better deal with elderly population.
36:18Exactly. And I can think of just a couple of points, such as geriatric care, dementia specialised support and also, I think, age friendly case management.
36:28How are your social workers from the reports that you've received back already dealing with this, even though it may not form a significant volume just yet?
36:39So far, I think because, like I said, it's not that much yet, the number of cases reported.
36:46So whenever there is, if there's any complex cases, they will definitely reach out to MASW or any of our members and then we will provide those advice to them.
36:56Yeah. And any thoughts on how perhaps integrating social workers into existing or near future community based ageing health care initiatives?
37:06I think moving forward, we will work more closely with the community itself because it will no longer will be just the social worker assisting the elderly individuals.
37:15Because like what Ani said earlier, there's also family members involved when it comes to elderly people.
37:20So it's no longer just doctors or social workers, but also a community approach to be more inclusive of them in our daily life.
37:29Absolutely. And any last thoughts on the fact that the Ministry of Women, Family, Community Development, on the other hand, has been vocal about the support for the tabling of the Social Work Profession Bill?
37:41Yeah, we hope that the stabling of the Social Workers Bill will happen soon and that it will also cover private and public sectors as well to have a standardized practice and also competency standards across all sectors.
37:54Exactly. So not just standardization, but regulation, which also then perhaps leads to the opportunity for gender sensitive, gender sensitized wages, which close also the gender pay gap.
38:07Thank you very much, Vaniza, as well as Anis. It's been a really interesting discussion and we hope and wish all success with firstly, the professionalization of the Social Work Profession Bill, as well as the outcomes of the Re-Care Study.
38:23Well, as we commemorate Labor Day 2025, let us honor the care workforce, not with mere applause, but with tangible action.
38:30We must not just advocate for the professionalization of social work, ensuring fair wages, career development opportunities and mental health support for them, as well as nurses, contract hospital sanitation workers and domestic workers, the core workforce who dedicate their working lives for supporting Malaysian society.
38:48The time to act is now. This has been Yaga Spotlight with me, Tamina Kauschi.
38:53We'll see you next Friday with more business analysis and insights. Here's to a productive week ahead.