1 POVERTY ISSUES AMONG ELDERLY IN MALAYSIA Saidatulakmal Mohd School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Penang, Malaysia Email address: eieydda@usm.my Abdelhak Senadjki 1 Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Perak, Malaysia Email address: abdelhak@utar.edu.my Norma Mansor Social Security Research Centre, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia Email address: norma@um.edu.my Acknowledgement This study benefits from the financial support provided by the Social Security Research Center (SSRC), Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. The authors thank the Economic Planning Unit and Department of Statistics Malaysia for the data and Afifuddin Hashim and Muhammad Waqas Ameer for their help in data decoding. We also thank the Economic Planning Unit and Department of Statistics Malaysia for assistance in providing the data. ABSTRACT Purpose: Given that elderly is most vulnerable group when encounter situation of loss of income, it is vital to understand the factors that attribute to elderly poverty for better policy measures. It is best that understanding of the factors are evaluated at individual levels than household levels as individuals have limited capacities in governing their individual traits conformed by the individual deficiencies and poverty theory, the vicious circles of poverty and human capital theory. Design/methodology/approach: this study used the 2009 Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) to estimate poverty incidence among individual elderly in Malaysia. Logisitic probability analysis was performed to estimate the factors that influence the probability of elderly living in poverty. Findings: High incidence of poverty is seen among female elderly, elderly head of households, elderly in rural areas, widows, married, divorced, separated and never married elderly, elderly with informal or no education or not reporting education, Bumiputera, elderly who live alone, and elderly who are no longer working. Age, marital status, ethnicity, education, strata, and employment status were found to be statistically significant in influencing elderly’s poverty. Research limitations/implications: the data used was out-dated and has limited capacity in explaining the trend of current elderly poverty in Malaysia. Secondly, measurement of poverty is very 1 Corresponding Author Present Address: Faculty of Business and Finance. Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. Jalan Universiti, Bandar Barat, 31900 Kampar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia