Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-swr86 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T21:20:18.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Recent and Prospective Population Trends in Malaysia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Gavin W. Jones  and
P. C. Tan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For many years now, the Malaysian government's population policy has included both a growth component and a distribution component. The growth component, adopted in the Second Malaysia Plan (1971–75) and still in force, was the goal of reducing the rate of population growth from 3 per cent to 2 per cent by 1985. The distribution component, first enunciated in a coherent way in the Mid-Term Review of the Second Malaysia Plan, is a strategy for regional development with direct population redistribution consequences. The Third Malaysia Plan (1976–80) elaborated the population situation and goals in greater detail but their broad thrust remained essentially unchanged. The Fourth Plan (1981–85), while maintaining the target of lowered growth rates, emphasized the quality of human resources and was sanguine about the prospects for economic development far outstripping the rate of population growth. Indeed, earlier concern with unemployment had been replaced by worries about the emergence of labour shortages.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , September 1985 , pp. 262 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Malaysia, Second Malaysian Plan 1971–1975 (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printers, 1971), p. 246.Google Scholar

2 Malaysia, Mid-Term Review of the Second Malaysian Plan 1971–1975 (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printers, 1973), pp. 17–21.Google Scholar

3 Lean, Lim Lin, Population and Development: Theory and Empirical Evidence. The Malaysian Case (Kuala Lumpur: International Book Service, 1981), pp. 311–13.Google Scholar

4 Two points regarding Sabah and Sarawak are, however, worth noting here. The higher rates of population growth in Sabah than in the rest of Malaysia are due mainly to immigration from neighbouring areas of the Philippines and Indonesia; and the decline in growth rates in Sarawak in the 1970s reflects a decline in fertility rates, especially for the Chinese population (see Leete, R. and Kwok, K. K., “The Demography of East Malaysia and its Relationship with that of the Peninsula 1960–80”, mimeo., 1984).Google Scholar

5 I.L.O., Why Labour Leaves the Land: A Comparative Study of the Movement of Labour out of Agriculture (Geneva, 1960).Google Scholar

6 Sidhu, M.S. and Jones, G. W., Population Dynamics in a Plural Society: Peninsular Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Co-operative Bookshop, 1981), p. 16.Google Scholar

7 WHO, Mortality in South and East Asia, A Review of Changing Trends and Patterns, 1950–1975, Report and Selected Papers, Joint WHO/ESCAP Meeting, Manila 1–5 December 1980 (Manila Official Publications: Lyceum Press Inc., 1982), p. 17.Google Scholar

8 WHO, 1982, p. 17.Google Scholar

9 The crude death rate for the Chinese was higher than for the Malays in 1980 because of differences in the age structure. Figures prior to 1980 were higher for the Malays than the Chinese.Google Scholar

10 Lopez, A.D. and Ruzicka, L. T. (ed.), Sex Differentials in Mortality: Trends, Determinants and Consequences (Canberra: Department of Demography, Australian National University, Miscellaneous Series, No. 4, 1983)Google Scholar; D'Souza, S. and Chen, L. C., “Sex Differentials in Mortality in Rural Bangladesh”, Population and Development Review 6, no. 2 (1980): 257–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 G. W. Jones and M. S. Sidhu, “Population Growth in Peninsular Malaysia”, in Population Dynamics, ed. Sidhu and Jones, pp. 29–62. Hirschman, C., “Demographic Trends in Peninsular Malaysia, 1947–1975”, Population and Development Review 6, no. 1 (1980): 103–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 G. W. Jones, “Fertility Decline in Peninsular Malaysia”, in Fertility Declines in Developing Countries, ed. W. Parker Maudlin (forthcoming), Table 10.

13 Tan, P. C., “The Impact of Nuptiality on Fertility Trends in Peninsular Malaysia, 1957–1980” (PhD thesis, ANU, Canberra, 1983), chap. 2Google Scholar; Department of Statistics, 1980 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia: General Report of the Population Census.(Kuala Lumpur, 1983), vol. 1, Table 4.10.Google Scholar

14 P. C. Tan, “The Impact of Nuptiality”, chap. 2; G. W. Jones, “Malay Marriage and Divorce in Peninsular Malaysia: Three Decades of Change”, Population and Development.

15 P. C. Tan, “The Impact of Nuptiality”, chap. 4.

16 Hirschman, Charles, “The Recent Rise in Malay Fertility: A New Trend or a Temporary Lull in a Fertility Transition”, mimeo. (1985).Google Scholar

17 Chander, R., Palan, V. T., Aziz, Nor Laily and Ann, Tan Boon, Malaysian Fertility and Family Survey—1974: First Country Report (Kuala Lumpur: Department of Statistics, 1977), p. 143.Google Scholar

18 Briefly, the labour force will grow more rapidly than it would have with slower population growth, and it will be more difficult both to raise the proportion of the eligible population given secondary and tertiarylevel education and to increase the capital investment per worker. Because of the more abundant, less highly skilled labour force, wages will be held to lower levels than they would otherwise be, and this will encourage labour-intensive industries and production techniques.

19 For a recent summary of the evidence, see Rodgers, G., Poverty and Population: Approaches and Evidence (Geneva: I.L.O., 1984).Google Scholar

20 For a review of pro-natalist measures adopted in many industrialized nations, see Berelson, B. (ed.), Population Policy in Developed Countries (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974)Google Scholar; McIlntosh, C. A. and Sharpe, M. E., Population Policy in Western Europe (New York: Armonk, 1983).Google Scholar