Demographic Issues in Malaysia

Nik Norliati Fitri Md Nor

doi:10.5539/ass.v15n11p116

Abstract

This article will discussed about demographic issues in Malaysia and focused about fertility trend, increasing the number of ageing (60 years and above) and non citizen residents. Since 2016 years the crude birth rate in Malaysia are decreased to 16.6 per 1000 population compared to 18.5 per 1000 population in 2009. Starting on years 2019, fertility trend among women are decreased which is below the replacement level 2.1 child per women (15-49 years reproductive women) especially Chinese and Indian ethnic. In 2014, Chinese ethnic and Indian showed that total fertility rate is 1.4 child per women. In 2015, Malay ethnic showed the total fertility rate is 2.6 per child among women 15- 49 years. This situation showed the issued of age population increasingly significantly. The percentage of older person in Malaysia in 2010 among Chinese, Indian, Malay and Bumiputera ethnic are representively 12.2 percent, 7.9 percent, 7.3 percent and 6.2 percent. It showed that the issues of social support for example the living arrangement of older persons, health care, health status and income are the most important issues and must be addressed. Besides that, Malaysia will be challenging problem migrant worker from Asian country and will cause the problem for example for Malaysian citizen to get the work. Based on Department of Statistics Malaysia in 2016, there are about 3.3 million non-Malaysian citizens in Malaysia which is 80.3 percent in 15-64 years. Hopefully this paper will provide some suggestions to enable the authorities to address these issues more effectively.

Highlights

There are three factors that caused to the changes in the world demographic profile which are economic development, health care improvement and decreasing the numbers of fertility rates
This paper will look into the details of the three issues raised to evaluate and interpret the extent to which the decline in fertility, aging population and illegal immigrants in Malaysia could have an impact on the country
The question is, what is the situation of population ageing in Malaysia? What can be done to address population ageing issues? This paper provides an overview of population ageing issues and challenges in Malaysia

Summary

Introduction

There are three factors that caused to the changes in the world demographic profile which are economic development, health care improvement and decreasing the numbers of fertility rates. This paper will look into the details of the three issues raised to evaluate and interpret the extent to which the decline in fertility, aging population and illegal immigrants in Malaysia could have an impact on the country. Like any other countries around the world, Malaysia is experienced a rapid growth of the older population. This is a direct consequence of the decades of socio-economic development and public health policies where falling fertility and rising longevity have resulted in the rise of new generations. This paper provides an overview of population ageing issues and challenges in Malaysia. This section describes the basic indicators of population ageing that is commonly used to understand the worldwide phenomenon. The pyramid is the graphic representation of the age–sex distribution with definitive shape to reflect population structure

Fertility Trend in Malaysia

Ageing Population in Malaysia

International Migration in Malaysia

Findings

Conclusion