Quantifying Priority in Women’s Decision-Making

This paper investigates the degree of emphasis given on each of nine criteria normally considered by working women in their everyday decision-makings. It attempts to quantify the degree of how one criterion is more important than the other. A method of deriving weight for each criterion that takes into consideration the raw weight and variation in the data is suggested. The data analyzed is based on a case study on ratings of importance of nine formulated criteria conducted on 340 academic and supporting women staff of Universiti Teknologi MARA in Shah Alam. This study provides an actual scenario on how working women put their priorities, when faced with various criteria in decision-making. Such inputs are valuable to policy makers and other relevant authorities in the planning of development programmes and in the making of new policies for working women. A brief discussion of criteria formulation is also included. Findings of the study reveal that different group of women placed different priority in their decision-making. The academic group placed feminine role as their top priority and the non-academics perceived economic role as the top priority in their decision-making.