"It's definitely a welcomed move to encourage more women to return to the workforce. Women often face glass ceilings like caring for children or elderly parents that prevent them from fulfilling their career objectives. Tax exemption aside, child care and elderly care facilities need to be made readily available to fully capitalise on this objective.

At the same time, the SC continues its drive to increase women's role at corporate leadership level and acknowledges that the key to its success is to introduce a special training programme to enhance the skill sets and increase the pool of women available for board directorship."

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"It all boils down to execution. How will the RM235mil be spent and which demography of women will the respective ministries and agencies be targeting? How can we ensure equitable opportunity?

There are various underlying issues—for instance, lack of family support—why most women, be it the privileged or underprivileged, are not able to thrive in business. To increase business capacity among women is to look at the issue from all angles. As long as we also address these other issues, the financial aids will absolutely help."

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"The tax exemption is a signal that the government is aware of a woman's 'motherhood penalty' and is taking action to address it. However, this is very much tied to formal employment and we know that most women are generating income through informal employment, so we must capture this segment as well. 

I do feel that there is still space to address a woman's multiple roles as caretakers. One of which, and not often talked about, is elderly care, which is more taxing in terms of time, money and effort. Malaysia is an ageing society and we need to place greater emphasis on financial resources and policies on our care economy.

Malaysian women's participation rate (55 per cent) is already the lowest in this region so our future efforts must be placed to address our multiple roles; only then can we truly get our brilliant, hardworking women back in the workforce to contribute to nation-building and increase income-generating capabilities."

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"The continuous allocation of budget for women entrepreneurs is necessary to improve household income by encouraging women to do more business and returning to the workforce. Studies have show that closing the gap between men and women's economic opportunities could boost Malaysia's income per capita by 26.2 per cent—an average annual income gain of about US$2,230 for each Malaysian. 

I think the government remains consistent in its Women Empowerment initiative but it is more important to take note on how it will be managed and disbursed. With these incentives in Budget 2023, it is important to measure how effective we are in increasing the number of women in the workforce and entrepreneurship, and in increasing the GDP contribution by women in Malaysia."

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