RISING STRESS & UNHAPPINESS AMONG MIDDLE-CLASS MALAYSIANS: A FACT – NOT A POLITICAL MYTH

According to the World Happiness Report 2019, Malaysia is ranked the 80^th happiest nation which is a massive drop of 45 places compared with 2018 when we were ranked 35^th.

The survey involved 156 countries which focuses on happiness and the community from the period of 2016-2018: how happiness has evolved over the past dozen years, with a focus on the technologies, social norms, conflicts and government policies that have driven those changes.

Besides this index, the 2017 National Health and Morbidity Survey had reported that 29% of Malaysians had depression and anxiety disorder compared with 12% in 2011. Depression will be a major mental health illness among Malaysians by 2020 as more people are expected to experience increased stress due to work and family pressure. Three out of 10 Malaysian adults suffered from mental health problems and 32% are from B40 income group as compared to other income groups which records only at 28%.

What are Malaysians not happy or stress about? One of the major concerns among Malaysians is about income inequality in urban areas. According to Pew Global survey, 77% of Malaysians think that the gap between the rich and poor is a big problem. The government has acknowledged that inequality remains high, and that tackling these disparities will be Malaysia’s “biggest challenge” in becoming a high-income nation.

Now, while Malaysia is mobilizing resources to address remaining disparities, living in a society that has a glaring inequality is bad for us as it can get stressful and unsettling. People turn to equate the amount of work or business with stress but that is not the only bigger predictor that we found about toxic stress.

Once you are a middle-class citizen, you can easily become upwardly mobile or you can also become downwardly mobile. Hence, you are constantly worried about where you are going to go next.  That loss of control that inability of to feel autonomous of your own destiny that turns out to be stressful.

People always say that poor people tend to be very stress and yes, that are a lot of reasons to feel that way. However, if you are constantly feeling worried about coming up and down or not sure which direction will you be in a social mobility, now that’s the most stressful thing in life. For examThe feeling is close to being at the Space Shot and Turbo Drops ride in a theme park in except that having a real-life thrill rides in our lives!

There are about 70% of Malaysians are now living in urban areas as compared with 20 years ago. Society’s expectations will be higher, especially when people migrate from rural to urban areas. You are considered poor in urban areas if you are living in low cost flats, own a motorcycle, buy local cars, wear a non-branded shoes or scarf. Even though you are not a hardcore poor but living in urban area can extremely make you anxious about your finances on a regular basis.

According to a report entitled “Riding the Wave: An East Asian Miracle for the 21st century”, Malaysia is known as the progressive prosperity country, which has eliminated income poverty while substantially increasing the share of middle-class households. The evolution of two economic classes which are economically secure class(Purchasing Power Parity of US$5.50–US$15.00 per day) and the middle class (Purchasing Power Parity of US$15.00 and higher per day) in Malaysia accounted for nearly two-thirds of our country’s population, a significant increase in 2016 from our share of just over one-fifth of the population in 2002.

For a progressive prosperity country like Malaysia, the priority is to satisfy the middle classes’ growing aspirations and demands for quality public services, including health and education, which will support continued upward mobility. The next step is to implement reforms that narrow rural-urban and cross-regional disparities in economic and social development in these three countries, which in turn will require increased or more efficient resource mobilization.

According to an economist, Professor Dr Yeah Kim Leng in an article published last year, the gap between the rich and middle-income earners is set to further widen in Malaysia as the business environment continues to favour those with money and high skills.

According to him, Malaysian economy favours those with capital and high skills. Even though there are a lot of jobs in the service and manufacturing industries, those holding mid and low-level jobs have not seen much increase in their wages. The cost of living seems to be escalating faster than their salaries.

However, this was not the case for those with money as they had the capital to invest in stock markets and take part in other forms of investment. The rich are also getting richer because of the low-interest rates, allowing them a tremendous increase in liquidity. This has injected higher capacity of cash benefiting the rich.

Malaysians are categorised into three different income groups: Top 20% (T20), Middle 40% (M40), and Bottom 40% (B40). According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia, all household groups recorded an increase in the mean monthly household income during the period of 2014 to 2016. The M40 group recorded the highest annual growth rate of 6.9 per cent from RM5,662 in 2014 to RM6,502 in 2016.

Although the income level for each group has improved over the past years, middle-income earners are also facing escalating costs of living due to inflation and slower wage growth.

How can Malaysia narrow the gap between the rich and poor to achieve a more equitable income distribution? The first and most important is to provide equal opportunities through education and getting more Malaysians to acquire better skills to break the cycle. When more workers have high skill levels, inequality in wages decline.

In addition, we need to look past the noises from the past and preserve focus on the core values of our country has to offer such as equal opportunities and respect for all. These values are the ones that will guide us and should be the focus of our country. If not, we will be under a great stress and an unhappy of a nation.

Noor Asmaliza Romlee

Kuala Lumpur

✍ Sumber Pautan : ☕ Malaysians Must Know the TRUTH

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