Malaysia records declination in birth after a decade

SHAH ALAM - Malaysia’s live birth records a significant decline in 2021 after a decade which is 439,744 compared to 2020.

The Statistics Department in a report stated that in 2020, the number of births in Malaysia was 471,504 which was a 6.7 per cent of declination.

Meanwhile, the crude birth rate (CBR) issued also declined from 14.5 per cent in 2020 to 13.5 per cent in 2021 per thousand population.

However, the fertility measured by Total Fertility Rate (TFR) disclosed a significant fallout as of 2021, which was 1.7 per cent compared to the past five decades.

TFR is an indicator used to estimate the average number of children a woman would have over her childbearing age.

“However, for the period of 2011 to 2021, the TFR for all major ethnic groups in Malaysia has shown a declining trend.

“TFR for all ethnic except Malay was below replacement level.

“The highest TFR was recorded by the Malay with 2.2 babies.

“Meanwhile, Chinese recorded the lowest TFR of 0.8 babies per woman aged 15 to 49 years,” it said.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, high percentage of death was also recorded in 2021 which was 224,569.

It was 34.5 per cent higher than 2020 which amounted 166,970 of deaths.

"The Crude Death Rate (CDR) also recorded an increase from 5.1 (2020) to 6.9 (2021) deaths per thousand population," it said.