International Symposium
"In Pursuit of Statistics for Sustainable Development in Asia"
PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF STATISTICS
IN PURSUIT OF
SUSTAINBLE HUMAN DEVEROPMENT
IN MALAYSIA
by
Ishak Shari
Professor/Director
Institute of Malaysian and International Studies
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Malaysia
ABSTRACT
Introduction
Human development regards economic growth as essential, but emphasizes on equity, sustainability and empowerment of people. In fact, equity is a powerful concept that lies at the heart of the human development paradigm. One important determinant of equity of access to opportunities is the pattern of income distribution..
In Malaysia, the equity issues, particularly poverty and income inequality, have also attracted a considerable amount of attention especially after the racial riot of 1969 and the implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1971. Despite progress in reducing incidence of absolute poverty and income inequalities, existing development plan still emphasizes efforts to eradicate absolute poverty and reducing income inequalities to enable the rising standards of living to be shared more widely among all ethnic groups in the country.
This paper attempts to review the nature and problems of available income statistics in Malaysia. After a brief description on the trend of income inequality and poverty level in Malaysia during the 1971-1995 period, it describes the principal sources of income data and problems connected with the data as well as some of the gaps in related data which could hinder efforts towards understanding factors and processes in achieving human development in the country.
Trend in Poverty Level and the Distribution of Income
In Malaysia, during the 1971-1990 period, much progress was made in bringing about growth with equity. During the period, the economy was growing at annual growth rate of 6.7 percent per annum; poverty rate reduced (from 52.4 percent in 1970 to 17.1 percent in 1990); and income inequalities narrowed.(with Gini ratio declining from 0.502 in 1970 to 0.446 in 1990). The living standards of Malaysians also improved.
