Social Security in Malaysia: Stock-Take on Players, Availablec Products and Databases

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to provide an overview of social security in Malaysia. The focus is on relevant services, players and databases in the country. The development of social security in Malaysia is captured in Malaysia’s Five Year Development plans with a twin goal of achieving good growth and equitable development. Hence, social security policies in the more recent development plans were part of the distribution policies. The study uses the ILO’s three-dimensional approach to social protection as a benchmark for analysis. The first dimension refers to the proactive measures to provide social assistance to the non-productive and productive groups in society by ensuring access to basic essential goods and services. The basic protection floor has improved over the years with programmes targeted at equitable development and inclusive growth as seen in the NEM and the 10th MP. The second dimension refers to the social insurance system to prevent or at least mitigate the impact of risks borne by society. The four main schemes such as pension for civil servants, the LTAT, the EPF, and SOCSO have contributed to a relatively higher score forMalaysia (same income group), in the Social Protection Index (SPI) introduced by the ADB (2003). However, post-1997 Asian Financial Crisis saw social security policies beginning to incorporate labour market programmes, the third dimension of the ILO’s framework which aims at promoting the potentials and opportunities for individuals to contribute positively to society. Several agencies that are accountable to different authorities are responsible for the programmes. Yet, there is no effective coordination; in other words, no supreme body to oversee the products of social security and to link them all to meet the national framework and policy. The absence of an overarching social policy is not helping either. All social protection service providers and government agencies collect data and information in order to support their own programmes. As a result, the single-user data collection remains isolated with no mega-database as an interface among social securityproviders.