From fragmentation to lifespan financial protection: Developing a six-pillar retirement planning framework for Malaysian military families raising children with special needs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55573/IJAFB.117006Keywords:
disability-sensitive retirement planning, financial readiness, military families, special-needs children, future care planning, special-needs trust, social protection, MalaysiaAbstract
Conventional retirement planning generally assumes that dependant children will eventually become financially independent. For families raising children with special needs (SNC), however, dependency may continue across the life course and beyond the caregivers’ retirement or death. This study develops and validates an integrated retirement-planning framework for Malaysian military families with SNC dependants. A qualitative framework-development design was employed to synthesise evidence generated across an earlier multi-stage research programme, including institutional mapping, financial-instrument analysis, household-level qualitative findings, international benchmarking, community engagement, and evidence on the transition to adulthood. A structured gap analysis identified six recurring weaknesses: fragmented institutional coordination, conventional retirement assumptions, underutilisation of financial and estate-planning instruments, discontinuity during transition to adulthood, caregiver financial and psychological strain, and limited long-term policy protection. These gaps were translated into a three-level, six-pillar framework and refined through stakeholder engagement with military welfare institutions, social welfare authorities, Islamic religious institutions, trust management organisations, and financial planning professionals. The final framework comprises Household Financial Readiness; Estate and Inheritance Planning; Insurance and Takaful Solutions; Institutional Support Mechanisms; Benchmarking and Best Practices; and Policy and Governance Reform, with financial literacy and retirement awareness operating as cross-cutting foundations. The study contributes by integrating military financial readiness with disability-sensitive future planning and continuity of lifespan care. It further proposes implementing an architecture centred on coordinated case navigation, special-needs trust mechanisms, early estate planning, and policy recognition of lifelong dependency. The framework provides a context-specific policy instrument that may inform reforms to retirement, disability, and social protection in Malaysia.
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