This article analyses the complex factors contributing to rising medical expenses, focusing on the senior citizen demographic in Malaysia. With the global aging population, notably in lower and middle-income countries, the study highlights the escalating medical and health insurance costs, driven by age, income source, modern healthcare, and geographical residence. The research draws on an extensive literature review, demographic analysis, and quantitative methods to examine these determinants. It critically analyzes Malaysia’s healthcare system, which operates on a dual-tier model, and the financial burden placed on senior citizens. The findings indicate that age, source of income, and geographical residence significantly influence medical expenses, whereas modern healthcare’s impact is not statistically significant. The study calls for government intervention, insurance industry adjustments, and private sector support to mitigate the financial strain on senior citizens. Recommendations include tax relief adjustments, National Health Insurance Scheme implementation, and employment sustainability for seniors. This research provides some recommendations to policymaking, the insurance industry, and academia by providing insights into managing the healthcare needs of an aging population sustainably.

The formation and implementation of migration policy cannot avoid being influenced by political elements, particularly political actors who have a direct or indirect interest in migration issues. Previous studies show that the influence on the administration and migration policy of a country has created the concept of ‘client politics’, that is, employers have a certain influence on the administration of foreign workers, especially in western countries. This situation has also created two groups which are pro-migrants consisting of employers, fundamental rights groups and trade unions; and anti-migrants are often associated with bureaucrats, nationalists and others. This study has used qualitative methods and has interviewed the informants consisting of government agencies, academics, employers, trade unions and NGOs. The results of the study show that those actors have a certain influence on the management of foreign workers including in the aspects of policy making and implementation. The concept of ‘client politics’ is seen to only apply to certain sectors, especially the manufacturing sector. Therefore, practically in Malaysia it is considered as ‘sectoral client politics’. In conclusion, the influence of both groups is not pursuing the interests of the country but rather on the interests of their respective sectors and entities.

Human resource management practices are crucial, especially in the private healthcare sector. This could be because managing personnel in the healthcare sector is particularly challenging; therefore, meeting every employee's needs is crucial. Recently, the healthcare sector has experienced a scarcity and unbalanced distribution of employees due to job turnover. In addition, employee performance in the private healthcare sector has shown a slight drop due to the dissatisfaction of employees toward human resource practices such as unattractive compensation and rewards packages, bias in performance appraisal, lack of training and development, and many more. Therefore, this study is conducted to examine the impact of human resource practices on employees' job performance. Specifically, there are three main human resource practices observed as factors that contribute to an employee's job performance. The three human resource practices are compensation and benefits, performance appraisal, and training and development. There were four private hospitals operating in Selangor, Malaysia, chosen as a sample for this study. The private hospitals are KPJ Selangor Specialist Hospital, Columbia Asia Hospital Puchong, Assunta Hospital PJ, and Sunway Medical Centre. Out of these four private hospitals, there were about 291 employees working at the front desk: nurses, clinical workers, and administration staff were chosen as respondents in this study. The questionnaires were distributed to the respondents by hand. The data collected was analyzed using SPSS version 29. The findings indicate that employee job performance in Malaysian private hospitals is positively correlated with compensation and benefits. Employees feel motivated by compensation, which encourages them to increase their production and work more efficiently. Additionally, the findings also suggest that performance appraisal and training and development significantly contribute to employee job performance.

The COVID-19 pandemic had an adverse impact on the mental health of frontline workers including firefighters. To better understand this occurrence, this cross-sectional study evaluated the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress among 105 operational team and elite team firefighters in Kota Bharu, Kelantan State, Malaysia before and after the pandemic. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21), a validated self-reporting survey tool, was used to assess symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress among the survey respondents. Findings revealed that firefighters had an increased level of anxiety and depression during the post-pandemic period compared to the pre-pandemic period. However, there was a decrease in the stress levels (20%) reported by study participants. Respondents belonging to the operational team had a higher reported level of depression, anxiety, and stress than those from the elite team. This may be attributed the operational team being more exposed to the risk of COVID-19 infection on account of their routine and more voluminous workload. The findings of this study suggest that firefighters, in general, are at an increased risk of mental health problems as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowing this, it is important to consider these findings when addressing the prevention and management of mental health among firefighters. This includes providing additional support and devoting more resources to those who are most at risk for experiencing symptoms of mental health such as firefighters performing functions aligned with that of an operational team.

The Agriculture Trading Platform (ATP) represents a significant innovation in the realm of agricultural trade in Malaysia. This web-based platform is designed to address the prevalent inefficiencies and lack of transparency in the current agricultural trading environment. By centralizing real-time data on agricultural production, consumption, and pricing, ATP provides a comprehensive dashboard that facilitates data-driven decision-making for all stakeholders in the agricultural supply chain. The platform employs advanced deep learning algorithms, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), to forecast market trends and consumption patterns. These predictive capabilities enable producers to optimize their market strategies, negotiate better prices, and access broader markets, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency and transparency of agricultural trading in Malaysia. The ATP’s user-friendly interface and robust analytical tools have the potential to revolutionize the agricultural sector by empowering farmers, reducing reliance on intermediaries, and fostering a more equitable trading environment.

This study aims to identify the impact of inheritance literacy, inheritance socialization, inheritance stress, and peer influence on the inheritance behaviors among FELDA communities in Malaysia. Inheritance literacy pertains to individuals’ comprehension of wealth transfer and estate planning, while peer influencer evaluates friends’ impact on inheritance attitudes; inheritance socialization explores family interactions’ role in shaping inheritance attitudes, and inheritance stress measures emotional strain in inheritance matters, with inheritance behaviors encompassing asset management and wealth transfer decisions for future generations by individuals and families. Understanding inheritance behaviors is crucial, as it helps individuals depict their inheritance knowledge and attitudes toward FELDA inheritance better, fostering a more favorable inheritance attitude. Through self-administered survey questionnaires, data related to FELDA communities are obtained using convenience sampling from 413 respondents. This study applies Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique to test the research hypotheses. The present study’s outcome confirms that two determinants, which are inheritance literacy and inheritance socialization significantly influence the inheritance behavior of FELDA communities. However, inheritance stress and peer influence determinants have statistically insignificant influence inheritance behavior. This study’s theoretical framework enriches the discussions on wealth management and financial behavior by refining and expanding upon existing financial behavior theories to incorporate inheritance-specific behaviors. The present study is exclusive in its effort to ascertain the relative importance of both inheritance behavior and the FELDA communities. This paper will assist the government, inheritance service providers, and policymakers in offering innovative economic schemes and designing policies that may enhance the inheritance behavior wellbeing of FELDA communities. This article also provides a roadmap to guide future research in this area.