YESTERDAY (Feb 14) was Valentine’s Day and many celebrated the occasion by treating their significant others to romantic dinners, chocolates and flowers. And in conjunction with Valentine’s Day, Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin expressed his concern on the declining Chinese Malaysian birth rate in a Facebook post.
He explained that The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) in 2021, the General Marriage Rate (GMR) among Muslim males was 60.4 while non-Muslim males’ GMR was 21.9. GMR for Muslim females was 62 while non-Muslim (females) was 23.
“Therefore on average, Muslim is 2.7 times more getting married compared to Non Muslims. In simple language, non Muslims are less getting married,” said Sim in his post.
For those unfamiliar with GMR, it is a measurement of total marriages in a year compared to 1,000 unmarried individuals aged 16 and over (females) or aged 18 and over (males).
“When I look into DOSM’s latest statistics, I found out Malaysian Chinese not only have less babies, there are less marriages too! Double shocks!”
He concluded his Facebook post urging Chinese communities to look into the problem of fewer marriages.
“While staying single is own life choices, we should encourage marriages among those who incline to marry.”
Netizens weren’t all too eager about Sim’s plea, with many stating that financial pressure and the increasing cost of living to be one of the many reasons for the declining birth rate.
