KUALA LUMPUR, July 23 — The years that babies in Malaysia in 2020 are expected to live has increased further to 74.9 years or almost 75 years, the latest statistics from the Department of Statistics of Malaysia (DOSM) has shown.
The trend of females having higher life expectancy than males continued even across different age groups, while the ethnic Chinese community was also shown to be expected to live longer when compared to the life expectancy of the Bumiputera and Indian ethnic groups.
Based on the Abridged Life Tables for Malaysia for 2018-2020 released today, Malaysia’s chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin noted: “A newborn baby this year is expected to live until the age of 74.9 years, almost five months longer than 2014 (74.5 years).”
“In average, a newborn baby girl in 2020 is expected to live until the age of 77.6 years, five years longer than baby boy, 72.6 years,” he said in a statement.
This is in contrast to 2014 when babies born in Malaysia were expected to live up to 77 years for females, and to 72.4 years for males.
In comparison to Malaysia’s 2018 life expectancy at birth of 74.6 years, the figures elsewhere the same year include Hong Kong (84.9 years), Japan (84.2), Switzerland (83.8), Singapore (83.1), and Indonesia (71.5).
Life expectancy at the age of 15
For males who reach the age of 15 in 2020, their life expectancy is 58.4 years, which means they are expected to live until the age of 73.4 years.
Females who turned 15 in 2020 have a relatively higher life expectancy of 63.2 years, which means they are expected to live until the age of 78.2 years.
Life expectancy at the age of 60
Just like the life expectancy at birth, the life expectancy for those who turned 60 in 2020 also increased.
For 60-year-old males, their life expectancy increased from 18.2 years in 2014 to 18.4 years in 2020, which means they were expected to live until the age of 78.2 years old in 2014 and 78.4 years old in 2020.
As for 60-year-old females, they were expected in 2014 to live a further 20.6 years or to the age of 80.6, and were expected in 2020 to live another 21.2 years or to the age of 81.2 years old.
DOSM noted that higher life expectancy for females could also be seen in countries such as Japan (87.3 years), Singapore (85.4 years), the Netherlands (83.6) and the UK (83.1 years).
The increased life expectancy rate in Malaysia over the years is in line with the annual increase in the number of the population that are aged 60 and above.
“Based on the population estimates for 2020, the population aged 60 and over increased to 3.5 million (10.7 per cent) as compared to 3.4 million (10.3 per cent) in 2019,” the DOSM noted.
Life expectancy according to ethnicity
The DOSM noted that the life expectancy at birth for the Chinese in 2020 continues to be the highest at 77.6 years, followed by the Bumiputera (73.7) and Indians (72.1).
Again when broken down according to gender, females recorded higher life expectancy at birth across all ethnic groups, with female babies of Chinese ethnicity expected to live to 80.5 years compared to their male counterparts at 75.4 years.
The same pattern was seen in the Bumiputera group with female babies expected to live to 76.3 years while male babies are expected to live to 71.3 years, and also within the ethnic Indian group with female babies expected to live to 76.2 years and male babies to 68.4 years.
Top three states
When it comes to life expectancy at birth for female babies, the three states with the highest figures are Kuala Lumpur (79.4 years), Penang (78.9 years), and Sarawak (78.4 years).
As for male babies, the three states with the highest life expectancy at birth figures are Sarawak (74.6), Kuala Lumpur (74.5) and Selangor (including Putrajaya) at 73.8 years.
