ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Malaysian government planning and policy-making have increasingly come to
recognise the role of women and the household in the promotion of a number of strategies
aimed at enhancing economic competitiveness. Government planning documents emphasise
the need to boost women’s labour market participation, increase women’s levels of
entrepreneurship, and the need to strengthen and support the family unit-developments that
can be understood in terms of a market-building agenda in which women’s labour and the
household are viewed as untapped resources in the struggle to maintain international
competitiveness. This article explores an important dimension of this policy turn: the role of
civil society in both promoting and resisting this market-building agenda. The paper focuses
in particular on two case studies: religious non-governmental organisations involved in
implementing ‘family strengthening’ programmes and civil society engagements with the
issue of women’s representation on corporate boards.
