KUALA LUMPUR, April 29 -- When the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) released its National Transfer Accounts (NTA) 2022, Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin described it as a way to capture a simple but often overlooked reality: Malaysians rely on one another at different stages of life.

NTA is a framework that tracks how income and consumption are distributed across age groups, while showing how resources flow between generations.

At its core, the framework breaks the economy down by age.

In childhood and youth, individuals consume more than they produce, relying on families and the government for support. This shifts during the working years, when people begin earning income and eventually generate a surplus.

Acco...