Household Wealth in Malaysia: Composition and Inequality among Ethnic Groups

Muhammed Khalid ()
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Muhammed Khalid: Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS) University Kebangsaan Malaysia 43600 Bangi, Selangor Malaysia

Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, 2011, vol. 45, 71-80

Abstract: The paper studies the composition and inequality of wealth among the household per capita in Malaysia, using the 2007 Malaysia’s Household Income Survey (HIS), focusing on the disparity among the ethnic groups. Real estate assets make up about 96% of wealth, while financial assets make up the rest. Consistent with findings with other countries, the distribution of wealth are more skewed than of income. The distribution of wealth shows that the top 10% of Malaysian households per capita control 35% of the country’s wealth, while the bottom 40% own 8%. The decomposition of wealth shows that the Gini coefficient for savings is 0.98, while the figure for investment asset and real estate assets are 0.90 and 0.52 respectively. The distribution and inequality of wealth is more prominent among the Indians, followed by the Bumiputera and the Chinese respectively. Intra-ethnic, it is the Indian that has the least of ownership in wealth at 23.7%, and within the Bumiputera group, the figure are 14.7% and the Chinese 10.5%.

Keywords: Bumiputera; Ethnic; Malaysia; inequality; wealth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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