The Comparison between Elderly Men and Elderly Women in the Relationship of Demographic, Intergenerational Cash Transfer, Loneliness Status and Labour Force Participation in Malaysia

Abstract

As the time goes by, the world is ageing. Ageing process will take its course naturally and no one can obstruct the process. Most of the developing countries including Malaysia begins to experience the rising proportion of elderly in the population (Ismail et al., 2021). As of 2021, Malaysia is ranked 4th in terms of the ageing population size among the ASEAN members with 7.4 percent of the population aged 65 years old and above. This shows that Malaysia's ageing population is still relatively younger than Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam but it is still a great concern as the growth rate of Malaysia's ageing population is rising rapidly. Malaysia is going to hit 'aged nation' within 10 years which is faster than any developed economies (Ismail et al., 2015), where 15 percent of the population will attain age of 60 and above by 2030 (Aziz et al., 2022). In order to create an active and healthy aging community in Malaysia, elderly people must stay socially and economically active. Thus, promotion of the labour force participation of elderly people is significantly important. Despite the growing elderly population in Malaysia, there is still a lack of comprehensive research on their labor force participation. This has resulted in a number of unanswered questions regarding their demographic, financial support, and overall well-being, highlighting the need for further exploration in this area (Devasahayam et al., 2018). Hence, this paper demonstrate the study of the relationship of demographic, intergenerational cash transfer, loneliness status, and labour force participation of elderly men and elderly women in Malaysia. Keywords: Elderly, Intergenerational Cash Transfer, Demographic, Labour Force Participation, Loneliness Status