Beyond financial literacy: A structural financial burden framework for retirement planning among Malaysian military families raising special needs children

Abstract

Retirement planning is generally premised on a household life course in which child-related dependency and expenditure decline as children enter adulthood. For families raising children with special needs, this assumption often does not apply. The present study explores how disability-related caregiving reshapes retirement preparedness among Malaysian military families and develops a Structural Financial Burden Framework grounded in their lived financial experiences. An exploratory qualitative case-study design was used. Twenty in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with serving or recently retired Malaysian Armed Forces personnel or their spouses across three community-based rehabilitation centres in Kuala Lumpur, Perak and Melaka. Interview evidence was supplemented by responses from parents involved in special-education programmes and observations from a Community-Based Responsibility financial-education workshop that involved 25 families. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Six interrelated themes were identified: income stability and household needs; debt, savings and financial responsibility; employment-caregiving trade-offs; therapy and medical costs; financial attitudes and psychological adjustment; and financial knowledge and decision-making. The findings show that retirement vulnerability is not adequately explained by low income or weak financial discipline. Rather, it develops cumulatively through recurring disability-related expenditure, repeated depletion of savings, maternal employment disruption, geographically driven service costs, insurance exclusions and a persistent gap between general financial literacy and disability-specific planning knowledge. The study contributes a Structural Financial Burden Framework that reframes retirement readiness as the household capacity to absorb disability-related costs across the life course while preserving long-term savings and caregiving continuity. Policy implications include early post-diagnosis financial counselling, disability-specific financial education, support for caregiving spouses, continuity of healthcare and therapy support into retirement, and better integration of Shariah-compliant protection and estate-planning instruments.