Determinants of retirement wealth adequacy in Malaysia: A quantile regression approach

Retirement adequacy is essential for maintaining the standard of living obtained during the working years. The purpose of this research is to apply the quantile regression model in investigating the determinants of retirement wealth in Malaysia. This study uses the cross-sectional data of the Household Income Survey (HIS 2014) obtained from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM). Results show that when retirement wealth adequacy is higher (upper distribution), the middle-aged households and the households under M40 and T20 income groups have smaller significant negative contributions to retirement wealth adequacy. Besides the coefficients of determinants, a better understanding of the general pattern of the estimates of the regression parameters across the distribution of the wealth-needs ratio can be obtained from the quantile regression model. In addition, this study implicitly investigates wealth disparity among Malaysian retirees, which aligns with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 10, which aims to reduce inequalities among income groups (B40, M40, and T20).