Safeguarding Malaysians workers and households: impacts and avenues for Malaysia’s social protection in COVID-19 and beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic has created one of the worst economic and human crises since the Second World War. The onset of the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities-with marginalised and underserved communities and regions facing the largest socio-economic impacts from the virus. More than 400,000 households in Malaysia are currently living below the national poverty line, with hundreds of thousands more households vulnerable to falling into poverty as economic conditions worsen. Similarly, since the beginning of the year, more than 200,000 Malaysians have been put out of work. Moreover, employment data so far suggests that the impacts of the pandemic on jobs have unevenly impacted lower-skilled, part-time jobs, and have disproportionately affected marginalised groups like women and youth workers.

This webinar aims to focus on the distributional impacts of the crisis, and how it has affected social protection. What are the gaps in the exisiting Prihatin/Penjana economic response packages and what else is needed? How can take advantage of this crisis to invest in building social protection systems now that can help Malaysia better weather a similar crisis in the future?

Speakers :
Datuk Emeritus Prof Dr Norma Mansor
Director
Social Wellbeing Research Centre (SWRC), University of Malaya

Dr Amanina Abdur Rahman
Economist
World Bank Malaysia

Dr James Alin
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Business, Economics and Accountancy, Universiti Malaysia Sabah

Moderator :
Mr Terence Too
Fellow
Social Policy and National Integration, ISIS Malaysia