Materia Medica Malaysiana

Fertility rate on the decline in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR - The Malaysian population has grown to 25.1 million, a growth of 2.2 percentage points from 2000.

But despite the population growth, there has been a decrease in the fertility rate.
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Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said the decline in the fertility rate of 0.2 percentage point from 3.4 per cent in 1990 to 3.2 per cent in 2002 could be due to an increasing number of people giving top priority to their careers.

'Or it could be because people are marrying late or have chosen to stay single,' she said on Thursday after launching the fourth Malaysian Population and Family Census.

The census, she said, could help shed some light as to why the fertility rate was low.

Datuk Seri Shahrizat pointed out that the number of households in the country had increased from 3.6 million in 2000 to 4.9 million last year.

But the average household size had decreased to 4.5 people per household in 2000 compared to 4.7 people in 1995.

She also said the structure of the local population was undergoing evident changes, adding that Malaysia now had one million senior citizens.

'We need to find out if we have become an ageing society so that our policies will be relevant to the studies being conducted,' she said.

The census involving some 100,000 respondents will cover areas such as single parenting, marriage, behavioural patterns, medical practices and reproductive health.

It has been carried out once every 10 years since 1974.

The respondents are married women aged between 15 and 49 and their husbands, young people from 13 to 24 years old, singles from 25 to 49 years old and senior citizens aged 50 and above.

Datuk Seri Shahrizat said the data would be used as input for the ninth Malaysia development plan. -- The Star/Asia News Network