Comments on: Only 5% Ready for Retirement in Malaysia

By: How A Fresh Graduate Plan to Retire in 8 years | KCLau's Money Tips

How A Fresh Graduate Plan to Retire in 8 years | KCLau's Money Tips — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:31:57 +0000

[...] articles on retirement:Only 5% Ready for Retirement in Malaysia$10 to $1 million: How long does it [...]

By: kclau

kclau — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:22:22 +0000

Most people know the word “retirement”, but they don’t really understand what “retirement” actually is. Financial education should be included as a subject in school.

By: Relax

Relax — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 21:02:05 +0000

I think the major root of problem is that we are not well educated in financial planing.

Even the youngsters are not concerning.

By: Hilary

Hilary — Mon, 28 May 2007 14:09:51 +0000

Thank You, I really appreciate your subscription. I’ve subscribed to you weeks ago, but have not commented before. Be assured that I read your every post.

The reason I commented such was because I used to date an Australian, and in his culture, parents are self-sufficient and if physically unfit, will check themselves in to a retirement home. Although he didn’t mean any harm, his believe was rather hurtful to my parents, I’m sure you know the state of retirement homes over here.

It is a huge burden for a single child to bear the cost of both parents and children. Perhaps it will be easier if we don’t need to save up hundreds of thousands to go to a foreign university.

I just think that the whole premise of the article is flawed, although it is a good wake up call on the state of our personal finances. Cheers!

By: kclau

kclau — Mon, 28 May 2007 12:55:17 +0000

Hi Hilary,
It is true that we should educate our children to take care of their parents in old age. For our generation, we are like “sandwich” - squeezed at the middle. While taking care of our parents, some of us have to take care of our children too. But not like our parents, they can afford to raise more than 4 children, every child can equally share the burden. It can be foreseen that not many in our generation will raise more than 3 children nowadays. Most of them only got one child. It would be a big burden for the only child to take care of both their parent’s retirement years. It is not likely to be that perfect even if we educate our children properly. I still think that retirement should be a one-generation-problem.
Btw, nice blog you have there!.. I subscribe already

By: Hilary

Hilary — Mon, 28 May 2007 09:48:38 +0000

I think the article is a little flawed though, it assumes that we live in an American culture where parents are expected to be self-sufficient until their last day on earth.

In Malaysia, children are expected to assume responsibility for aging parents, and though it’ll be easier on them if parents are self-sufficient, it is simply our culture. To try to Americanise us do a lot of damage.

The question for us should be more about how to
1. educate our children so that they will know they are responsible to love and care for parents in old age, even if they are annoying
2. plan the retirement of those who never had kids