Lee Hwok Aun

Dr Lee Hwok Aun
Senior Fellow
  • 0Regional Economic Studies Programme0
  • 0Co-coordinator0, 0Malaysia Studies Programme0
Email
:
lee_hwok_aun@iseas.edu.sg
Tel.
:
68704528
Research Interest
Malaysia’s political economy and development policy Education and employment Social protection and labour policy

Researcher’s Profile

I am a Senior Fellow with the Malaysia Studies Programme and Regional Economic Studies Programme. I was previously Senior Lecturer in development studies at the University of Malaya. I authored Affirmative Action in Malaysia and South Africa: Preference for Parity (Routledge, 2021), co-edited The Defeat of Barisan Nasional: Missed Signs or Late Surge? (ISEAS, 2019) and have written various ISEAS Perspective and Trends articles on Malaysia’s affirmative action, inequality, education and labour. I led an unprecedented field experiment on hiring discrimination, published as “Discrimination of high degrees: Race and graduate hiring in Malaysia” (Journal of the Asia-Pacific Economy, 2016).

 

Current Research

  • Malaysia’s 15th General Election: Preparatory work in co-coordinating a set of research papers is under way, given the possibility that the election may be called soon.
  • Migrant labour and social protection in Malaysia: This project examines Malaysia’s longer-term record, recent progress, and continual challenges in terms of policy coherence and effective implementation.
  • Employment and labour policy in Malaysia: This project launches a set of inquiries into the quantity and quality of work, with particular attention to youth unemployment and structural change in the labour market.
  • Malaysia’s New Economic Policy at 50: This project investigates the policy discourses and popular notions surrounding the NEP, particularly departures from its original articulation and misguided, polarizing representations of the past forty years.

 

Selected Publications

  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2021) Affirmative Action in Malaysia and South Africa: Preference for Parity. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2020) “Work and wages of Malaysia’s youth: Structural trends and current challenges.” ISEAS Perspective 2020 No. 98. Singapore: ISEAS.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2020) “Unemployment among Malaysia’s youth: Structural trends and current challenges ” ISEAS Perspective 2020 No. 65. Singapore: ISEAS.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun and Muhammed Abdul Khalid (2020) “Is inequality really declining in Malaysia?” Journal of Contemporary Asia 50(1): 14-35.
  • Francis Hutchinson and Lee Hwok Aun (2019) The Defeat of Barisan Nasional: Missed Signs or Late Surge? Singapore: ISEAS.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2019) “Malaysia’s Shared Prosperity Vision needs to rethink to make a breakthrough” ISEAS Perspective 2019 No. 107. Singapore: ISEAS.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2019) “Quality, equity, autonomy: Malaysia’s education reforms examined” Trends in Southeast Asia 2019 No. 13. Singapore: ISEAS.
  • Lee, Hwok Aun and Christopher Choong (2019) “Inequality in Malaysia: Empirical Questions, Structural Changes, Gender Aspects” Journal of Southeast Asian Economies 36(3): 329-354.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2017) “Labour Policies and Institutions in the Eleventh Malaysia Plan: Aiming High, Falling Short” Journal of Southeast Asian Economies 34(3): 552-570.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2017) “Malaysia’s Bumiputera preferential regime and transformation agenda: Modified programmes, unchanged system” Trends in Southeast Asia 2017 No. 22. Singapore: ISEAS.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2017) “Surveys reveal fault lines – and common ground – in Malaysia’s ethnic relations and policies” ISEAS Perspective 2017 No. 63. Singapore: ISEAS.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2016) “Affirmative Action Regime Formation in Malaysia and South Africa” Journal of Asian and African Studies 51 (5): 511–527.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun and Muhammed Abdul Khalid (2016) “Discrimination of high degrees: Race and graduate hiring in Malaysia”, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy 21 (1): 53-76.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2015) “Affirmative Action in Malaysia and South Africa: Contrasting Structures, Continuing Pursuits”, Journal of Asian and African Studies 50 (5): 615-634.
  • Kamal Salih, Lee Hwok Aun and Muhammed Abdul Khalid (co-editors) (2014) Malaysia Human Development Report 2013: Redesigning an Inclusive Future. Kuala Lumpur: UNDP.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2014) “Affirmative Action: Hefty Measures, Mixed Outcomes, Muddled Thinking”, Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Malaysia, Meredith L. Weiss (ed.), New York: Routledge, 162-176.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun and Rene Ofreneo (2014) “From Asian to Global Financial Crisis: Recovery Amidst Expanding Labour Precarity” Journal of Contemporary Asia 44 (4): 688-710. DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2014.931035.
  • Lee, Hwok-Aun (2012) “Affirmative Action in Malaysia: Education and Employment Outcomes since the 1990s” Journal of Contemporary Asia 42 (2): 230-254.