Malaysia has developed, but the rakyat [people] has been left behind because incomes have not increased.
These are the popular opinions and beliefs among Malaysians who participated in our 2019 joint World Bank-University of Malaya qualitative study on living standards in Malaysia. The Kuala Lumpur skyline is emblematic of a modern, rich city, but closer to the ground, a conversation with the Grab car driver tells a different story of how most Malaysians struggle in their daily lives.
Even before the pandemic, there was a growing sense among the rakyat that the headline successes of Malaysia’s economy were not translating into real improvements in their daily lives. A previous study done by the World Bank on Malaysia’s cost of living challenges showed that many households need dual incomes and some even multiple jobs to make ends meet, suggesting that most people were not better off despite rapid economic growth in past decades.
Our latest report, Aiming High: Navigating the Next Stage of Malaysia’s Development, argues that while Malaysia is expected to reach the important milestone of becoming a high-income economy within the next 3–7 years, the bigger challenge is for the country to ensure that as the nation prospers, so do its citizens.
Over the past 30 years, only 33 countries have made the transition to high-income status, and in many ways, Malaysia is approaching the transition from a weaker position than its predecessors. Compared to those countries, Malaysia is approaching the high-income transition with higher inequality, limited social spending, and a shrinking fiscal space. A high-income country status that is not matched by elevated economic security and greater overall well-being for all Malaysians would be an achievement only on paper, and certainly not a meaningful one.
HIGH INEQUALITY IN MALAYSIA
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