Retirement Planning by Civil Servants

As Malaysia prepares itself to be an ageing society, many of its citizens are entering into life after retirement. Malaysians aged 60 and above comprised only 4.6% in 1957 and after over six decades, this has increased to 10.6%. With increasing life expectancy from 58 years in 1957 to 75 in 2018, the older generation is now living longer. The increase in retirement age, unfortunately, does not commensurate with the rise in life expectancy. While life after retirement on average was only about two years in 1957, this gap has increased to 15 years by 2018 given 60 years is the current retirement age. This leaves a long period of time where useful manpower goes untapped nor put to optimal use. In this phase of life, retirees from both public and private sectors alike risk deterioration of health and their maintenance, which shows they require more social support and adequate healthcare. The dependency ratio keeps rising, partly due to the increase in the proportion of those who are over 60 years of age.