The Determining Factors for Muslim Household Deemed Ideal to be in Debt: Proposed Conceptual Framework

The dependency of Malaysia towards the debt industry has made the trend of growth of household debt according to the ratio of household debt to the Gross Domestic Production (GDP) in 2015 to have reached a level that is more than 89.1 percent compared to 86.8 percent in the previous year and further increased to 89.9 percent in 2016. Such an increase has placed Malaysia at the highest rank, as a country with the highest growth rate of household debt in Asia and the trend of the household debt growth has seen the high-income group becoming the largest contributor to the increased rate of household debt compared to the middle and low income counterparts. Other than that, Islam has established a guideline on debt-making, implying that the Malay ethnic (or Muslims in specific) should stay being moderate and should not face the issue of debt. However, cases on debt practice have shown some opposing findings. The question is what are the determining factors for a Muslim household that is deemed ideal to be in debt? How is the factor of Religious Adherence determining the high income Muslim household to start making debts? Therefore, this study seeks to contribute to the relevant past literature and establish a conceptual framework that determines the ideal household to make debts by integrating the intrinsic determinants with the extrinsic determinants and further elaborates on the methodology that will be used in this work.