Infographics on Malaysia’s life expectancy released by the Department of Statistics.
KUCHING (July 29): Malaysia’s average life expectancy has increased to 75.6 years this year from 74.3 years in 2011, the country’s Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said.
He said the increase would see Malaysia becoming an ageing population by 2030.
“The increase is contributed by positive factors in socio-economic conditions such as improved standards of education, employment, health care and a decline in mortality rate.
“The percentage of the population aged 60 and above will reach 15.3 per cent in 2030,” he said in a statement today.
Uzir said the life expectancy for males and females who reached the age of 60 this year would increase and were expected to live further 18.9 years and 21.8 years, respectively.
Based on the population estimates, he said the population aged 60 and above increased from 8.1 per cent (or 2.4 million persons) in 2011 to 11.2 per cent (or 3.6 million persons) of the total population this year.
According to him, babies born this year on average are expected to live 1.3 years longer than those born a decade ago.
He said a newborn baby girl this year on average was expected to live up to 78.3 years while baby boys up to 73.2 years.
“Among the contributing factors are the differences in the lifestyles of males and females whereby males are more exposed to the hazardous nature of work.
“The increase in life expectancy is in line with an improved health service system and awareness from the people on the importance of maintaining good health,” he said.
Uzir said the Covid-19 pandemic did not have a significant impact with the mortality prevalence rate of 0.02 per cent between July last year and June this year.
He said boys and girls who reached the age of 15 this year were expected to live for another 58.9 and 64 years, respectively.
Uzir said the Chinese continued to register the highest life expectancy at birth for this year at 78.3 years, followed by Bumiputera (74.4 years) and Indians (73.7 years).
“This situation is related to the change in the total fertility rate for Chinese (1.1 babies per woman aged 15 to 49). However, Indians showed a higher increase in life expectancy this year with one year (last year: 72.7 years) as compared to Bumiputera (0.5 year) and Chinese (0.4 year).”
Based on Vital Statistics, Uzir said the total fertility rate for women aged 15 to 49 for all major ethnic groups had shown a declining trend last year.
He pointed out that the increase in life expectancy also had a positive relationship with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by state.
Uzir said a territory and three states recorded the highest life expectancy exceeding the life expectancy at national level (75.6 years) last year.
They were Kuala Lumpur (78 years), Selangor (77.3 years), Sarawak (76.5 years) and Penang (76.1 years).
“Health provisions and financial savings should be prepared with sufficient funds to avoid difficulties after retirement since the population is ageing,” he added.