KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 29): The planned National Ageing White Paper in 2027 must translate Malaysia’s National Ageing Blueprint 2025-2045 into coordinated and measurable action, according to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
This comes as Malaysia’s rapidly ageing population is set to reshape the country’s social protection, healthcare and retirement needs in the coming decades. Anwar's speech was read by Minister of Finance II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan.
“The National Ageing Blueprint 2025-2045 provides direction across the economy, employment, education, social protection, health, and long-term care. The planned National Ageing White Paper in 2027 must translate that direction into coordinated and measurable action,” Amir Hamzah read the speech in his officiating remarks at the International Social Wellbeing Conference 2026 here on Tuesday.
Anwar said long-term care would be among the fastest-growing needs as Malaysia’s population ages, noting that much of the responsibility currently falls on families and disproportionately on women, often without formal recognition or sufficient support.
“Families will always have an important role, but they cannot carry the responsibility alone,” Anwar said, adding that the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development and the Ministry of Health are taking the work forward under a national care framework towards 2030.
Retirement adequacy also remains a concern. Only four in 10 Employees Provident Fund (EPF) members are currently on track to reach the basic savings benchmark of RM390,000 by age 60, Anwar noted.
The government is aiming to raise this to six in 10 by 2030, he added.
“Yet accumulation is only one part of retirement security. Raising the floor is only half the work. We must also raise the ceiling by ensuring that longer lives are lived with agency, connection and purpose,” Anwar said.
“Those who are capable and wish to continue working beyond 60 should have the opportunity to do so. This is about choice, not compulsion,” Anwar added.
Malaysia became an “ageing” nation in 2021, when people aged 65 and above exceeded 7% of the population, and is expected to rise to 10% by 2035. By 2048, one in seven Malaysians is expected to be aged 65 or older, which would make Malaysia an “aged” nation under the United Nations’ definition, Anwar said.