KUCHING: The Ministry of Women, Early Childhood and Community Well-being Development will set up a Sarawak State Ageing Committee to address the state’s rapidly growing elderly population.
Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said the committee would conduct research and recommend measures to prepare for Sarawak’s projected “aged state” status by 2028, which is two years before Malaysia as a whole reaches this demographic shift.
Among the initiatives, she said, includes a consortium with Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak, Curtin University Malaysia, and University of Technology Sarawak.
“They will conduct a research on detailed profile of the aging population in terms of health status, income, family structure, and living arrangements.
“From there, we hope that they will propose to the ministry about the things that we need to prepare for an aged state by 2028, for both short term and long term. So this is where we are now,” she said.
She said this in a press conference after chairing the Sarawak Women and Family Council (MWKS) meeting at Wisma Wanita here Wednesday (Nov 6).
She added that the committee’s approach is inspired by advanced practices in China, which became an “aged nation” in 1999.
During a recent visit to Beijing, Fatimah and her team observed China’s structured response to ageing, which includes agencies like the China Research Centre on Aging (CRCA) and a digital dashboard that tracks demographic data by age, gender, and ethnicity.
She said Sarawak aims to implement a similar dashboard to monitor the needs and challenges faced by its elderly population, including health concerns, mobility, and financial stability.
The consortium’s research, initiated with an MoU on Oct 25, will span nine months, with each university focusing on a specific region: Curtin University in northern Sarawak, UTS in central Sarawak, and Swinburne University in southern Sarawak.
“We’ll combine the outcomes of that research and come up with a proposal, it will be comprehensive in terms of sample localities, and representative of ethnicities, gender, and urban and rural areas, because we’re concerned about our seniors in rural areas,” she added.
