Abstract
Population ageing has been on the policy agenda for over a decade, and it will become a more important policy issue in the future. Malaysia has completed its demographic transition in less than four decades. Declining in fertility and mortality rates has led to an improvement in the life expectancy of the population which has resulted an ageing population in Malaysia. The age distribution of Malaysia’s population had changed dramatically from 1970 to 2010 where the percentage of the population aged less than 20 years old had decreased by 18.3 % from 55.6 % in 1970 to 37.3 % in 2010. On the other hand, the share of elderly population (age 60 years or over) had increased from 5.5 to 7.9 % for the same period. The proportion of elderly is projected to reach 16.3 % of the total population by the year 2040. Furthermore, the old age index of Malaysia’s population has grew from 11.7 in 1970 to 28.7 in 2010. Malaysia is expected to become an ageing nation by the year 2030 where the elderly population comprises 15 % of the total population. This paper analyses ageing population trends and its changes in Malaysia. In addition, the implication of ageing population to societies and nation is also being discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Department of Statistics Malaysia. (2012). Population projection, Malaysia, 2010–2040. Putrajaya, Malaysia: Department of Statistics.
Doris, P. S., Idris, N. I. H., & Abu Bakar, N. (2010). Warga Emas di Malaysia: Ke Arah Kesejahteraan Ekonomi dan Sosial. Bangi: Penerbit UKM.
Economic Transformation Programme Annual Report. (2013). Retrieved from http://etp.pemandu.gov.my/
Jemain, A. A., & Ab Ghani, P. (2003). Menjejak perubahan Ferfiliti dan umur perkahwinan di Semenanjung Malaysia. Jurnal Teknologi, 39(C), 75–89.
Kinsella, K., & Wan, H. (2009). An aging world. US Census Bureau, International population reports, P95/09-1, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office.
Mahari, Z., Othman, W. R., Mhd Khalili, N. M., Esa, S., & Miskiman, N. (2011). Demographic transition in Malaysia: The changing roles of women. A paper presented at the 15th conference of commonwealth statisticians, New Delhi, India, pp. 7–10.
Mat, R., & Omar, R. (2002). Demographic trends in Malaysia with special focus on women. In 20th Population Cencus Conference, Ulaabaatar, Mongolia.
Menon, J., & Melendez-Nakamura, A. (2009). Aging in Asia: Trends, impacts and responses (no. 25). Asian Development Bank.
Scherbov, S., Sanderson, W. C., & Mamolo, M. (2014). Quantifying policy tradeoffs to support aging populations. Demographic Research, 30(March), 579–608.
Tengku Aizan, H. (2010). Demography of population ageing in South East Asia: Past, present and future trends. In South East Asian Conference on Ageing. 17–18 July 2010, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tinker, A. (1997). Older people in modern society. London: Longman.
United Nations. (2002). World population ageing 1950–2050. Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division. ST/ESA/SER.A/207, New York.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2013). World population ageing 2013. ST/ESA/SER.A/348.
World Health Organization. (2011). Global health and aging. NIH Publication no. 11-7737.
Zachariah, K. C. (2001). Coping with demographic transition. Economic and Political Weekly, 1938–1940.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to the Universiti Teknologi Mara, Malaysia for the financial support from the Research Acculturation Grant Scheme (RAGS/2013/UiTM/STO6/2). We are also grateful to the reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions, which have greatly helped in improving the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this paper
Cite this paper
Abdul Rashid, S. et al. (2016). Malaysia’s Ageing Population Trends. In: Abdullah, M., Yahya, W., Ramli, N., Mohamed, S., Ahmad, B. (eds) Regional Conference on Science, Technology and Social Sciences (RCSTSS 2014). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1458-1_88
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1458-1_88
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-1456-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-1458-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)