“The decline in fertility rate is due to a 1.3% drop in the number of live births from 508,685 in 2017 to 501,945 in 2018,” he said in a statement on the Malaysia 2019 Vital Statistics report released yesterday.

In the report, birth and death statistics were presented according to demographic characteristics in Malaysia for 2018 as key input for policy formulation and programme planning for health, education and employment.

Uzir said the decline in number of births had led to a drop in crude birth rate from 15.9 in 2017 to 15.5 per 1,000 population in 2018.

He said the decline was in line with that of developed countries such as Australia (1.8 babies), the UK (1.8 babies), Canada (1.5 babies), Singapore (1.2 babies) and South Korea (1.1).

In line with the decline in birth rate, the average age at first birth continued to increase by 0.1 year from 27.7 in 2017 to 27.8 in 2018.

“Generally, an increase in the average age of the mother at first birth indicates that the reproductive period is getting much shorter,” he said.

The report also showed that the district of Kuala Terengganu recorded the highest crude birth rate in 2018 at 30.5 per 1,000 population while Bagan Datuk, Perak had the lowest rate of 2.9.

As for the number of deaths, 172,031 deaths were recorded in 2018, an increase of 2.3% from 168,168 deaths in 2017.

The crude death rate remained at 5.3 per 1,000 population in 2017 and 2018.

“Sabak Bernam district, Selangor recorded the highest crude death rate in 2018 with 8.4 per 1,000 population. Kinabatangan district in Sabah has the lowest rate of 0.7 per 1,000 population,” he said.

Uzir said the change in age structure of the population was one of the contributing factors to the increase in number of deaths.