The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of aging on economic growth. The study used dynamic growth model and employed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach for the period of 1980 to 2011. Three proxies for aging are used namely fertility rate, life expectancy and old dependency ratio. However, only fertility rate is detected to have a long run cointegration. The major finding of this study showed that a reduction of fertility rate lead to higher economic growth. This implied that even though Malaysia will face aging society by 2020, the economic growth is still stable and can increase by investing more on human capital.
The overweight and obese population may affect the population health which can lead to economic stability and development of the countries to be compromised. Thus, this study estimates the burden of disease attributable to overweight and obesity in Malaysia for adults aged 20-59 years old. Population attribution fraction (PAF) and disability-adjusted life year (DALY) have been used to quantify years of life lost from premature death and number of years lost due to disability resulting from obesity and overweight. The burden of disease attributable to overweight was 1582 and 1146 PYs per 1000 persons for male and female, respectively. Meanwhile, the burden of disease attributable to obesity was 2951 PYs per 1000 persons with women in the lead at 1657 PYs per 1000 persons. The burden of overweight and obesity among Malaysian adults is substantial. The outcome of this study is crucial as it gives a comprehensive information on the burden of overweight and obesity in Malaysia. The information from this study also enables the authorities to develop activities and programs to combat obesity and tomaintain healthy lifestyle among Malaysian.