Technical support to Malaysian policy makers

Our project is helping build analitical capacity and improve policy formulation regarding population aging and retirement in Malaysia. As part of that effort, our Project Professor Naohiro Ogawa visited Kuala Lumpur from May 16 to 27, where, in his capacity as Chairholder of the University of Malaya Social Security Research Centre, he delivered several lectures and conducted a joint research with renowned domestic and foreign researchers. 

During his visit, Prof. Ogawa held a lecture at the Employers' Provident Fund (EPF) on May 22 attended by more than 300 Malaysian policy makers and business leaders. The title of the lecture was: “Population Ageing and Changing Intergenerational Transfers in Japan and Selected Asian Countries”. The professor also delivered a lecture at the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Government of Malaysia on May 24 under the title of "Population Ageing and Public/Private Generational Transfers in Selected NTA Asian Countries", which was attended by about 100 EPU officials in charge of formulating the next five-year economic development plan for Malaysia. 

During his stay in Kuala Lumpur Prof. Ogawa worked with Prof. Robert L. Clark from North Carolina State University and Dr. Norma Mansor, Director of the Social Security Research Centre and Professor of the Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya on the following two research topics: (1) an analysis of earnings profiles in Malayia in the period 2008-2015, and (2) the impact of the recently-revised mandatory retirement age on paid employment in Malaysia. The Malaysian government's  Department of Statistics will provide individual-level records gathered in the several rounds of the Malaysia’s Labour Force Survey for the research. The research is expected to produce two to three papers on the above topics. Furthermore, the three professors made a thorough comparative analysis of the questions regarding wages and labor force participation of the elderly in the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR) and the Malaysian Ageing and Retirement Survey (MARS) and examined possibilities for future research based on the data from those surveys.