SMALLER family sizes may carry long-term economic
consequences, particularly as traditional support systems weaken.
Dr Muhamad Hilmi Abdul Rahman, senior lecturer at Universiti Malaya’s Faculty of Business and Economics, describes how larger families with productive members can function as informal economic safety nets, allowing families to pool income, share caregiving responsibilities and absorb financial shocks collectively.
“Smaller households often lack this internal safety net,” he says.
“Without a secondary income, the probability of falling out of the job market is higher, which directly threatens housing and food security.”
Even when members of smaller households are employed, their ability to absorb rising living costs or unexpected crises remains limited.
The care conundrum
The pressures become more pronounced as Malaysia’s population ages. Muhamad Hilmi says caregiving arrangements, once supported by extended families, are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.
“From historical and cultural perspectives, daughters and wives provided long-term care for the elderly. This model is becoming unsustainable due to shrinking family sizes and a growing trend of children being less able to care for ageing parents,” he says.
With fewer siblings and relatives available to share responsibilities, caregiving duties are increasingly concentrated on a single individual, often creating burnout alongside emotional, financial, and career strain.
“Without siblings to share the responsibility, an only child becomes the sole caregiver for ageing parents,” he says.
“This often leads to forced career exits or reduced working hours precisely when his or her own retirement savings should be peaking.”
Muhamad Hilmi adds that reduced household sizes also create a “care deficit”, where the absence of resident family members forces individuals to rely on costly external care services.
He notes that family structures are becoming increasingly “vertical”, with more generations alive at the same time but fewer members within each generation, reducing the wider support once provided by cousins, aunts and siblings.
Strengthening social infrastructure
Beyond caregiving, Muhamad Hilmi says the weakening of extended family networks could also affect social mobility.
Traditionally, extended families often provided hidden forms of support such as housing, transport or financial assistance that allowed younger adults to take strategic risks early in their careers.
“Without this financial buffer, upward mobility becomes strictly dependent on immediate earnings,” he says.
Muhamad Hilmi explains that as households shrink, the burden of financial resilience is gradually shifting away from the family, a private institution, to the government, a public institution.
He adds that Malaysia would need stronger social protection systems to adapt to the demographic transition, including more affordable elder care services and support for the “sandwich generation” caring for both children and ageing parents simultaneously.
