PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s declining Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has signalled the potential for a demographic crisis such as population growth shrinking, ageing population, and economic and social implications.
Saying this, Chief Statistician Malaysia, Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin, pointed out that France and the UK have proactively responded to the issue of declining TFR, which could potentially lead to demographic crisis.
“They have pursued a strategy of increased migration to bolster their population numbers and labor forces. This approach aims to mitigate the potential economic and demographic challenges associated with declining fertility rates, such as ageing population and labour shortages,” he said in a statement today.
The TFR in Malaysia started to decline below the replacement level from 2013 onwards.
“The total fertility rate (TFR) in 2022 declined to 1.6 children for every woman aged 15-49 years as compared to 1.7 children in 2021,” Mohd Uzir said.
“This fertility rate was the lowest in five decades with 4.9 children per woman in 1970. Since 1970 up to 2012, the national TFR was still above the replacement level of 2.1 children, which indicates that the average number of children born per woman throughout her reproductive life has been sufficient to replace herself and her partner.”
Based on the Principles and Recommendations for A Vital Statistics (Revision 3), United Nations Statistics Division (2014) manual, the replacement level of 2.1 children is the average number of children a woman would need to give birth by bearing a daughter who survives to childbearing age. If the replacement level of fertility is sustained over a sufficiently long period, each generation will exactly replace herself and her partner regardless of population migration”.
In the Vital Statistics Malaysia 2023 released by the Office of the Chief Statistician Malaysia, Department of Statistics Malaysia, the TFR for all major ethnic groups in Malaysia has shown a declining trend for the period of 2011 to 2022,
The highest TFR was recorded by Malay with 2.1 children per woman aged 15-49 years. Chinese recorded the lowest TFR of 0.8 children.
At the state level, all states recorded TFR below the replacement level except three states namely Terengganu (2.9 children), Kelantan (2.7 children) and Pahang (2.1 children).
Malaysia, along with several developed countries such as the US (1.7 children), Australia (1.7 children), the UK (1.6 children), Japan (1.3 children) and Republic of Korea (0.8 children), have observed a trend of fertility rates falling below the replacement level.
Similar trends have also observed in Asean countries namely Vietnam (1.9 children), Brunei (1.8 children), Thailand (1.3 children) and Singapore (1.1 children), while the Philippines (2.7 children), Lao PDR (2.5 children), Cambodia (2.3 children), Indonesia (2.2 children) and Myanmar (2.2 children) were above replacement level.
For the past five decades, TFR has been declining in all selected countries with the varying declining pace according to their level of fertility. There are few countries that have faced a decline in the level of TFR below replacement the level much earlier, namely the UK (1973: 2.0 children), Japan (1975: 1.9 children), France (1976: 2.0 children), Australia (1977: 2.0 children) and Singapore (1977: 1.8 children).
