Malaysia's births fall below 400,000 as fertility rate drops to 1.5 in 2025

Malaysia recorded 396,175 live births in 2025, down 18,743 or about 4.5% from 414,918 in 2024, and its total fertility rate fell to 1.5 children per woman from 1.6, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said in its annual vital statistics release on Thursday, October 15, 2026. The crude birth rate dropped to 11.6 births per 1,000 people from 12.2 a year earlier. The fertility rate, the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime at current rates, is now well below the level of about 2.1 needed for a population to replace itself without migration.

Malaysia is now firmly below replacement fertility, and the drop from 1.6 to 1.5 in a single year is steep for a national average. Each tenth of a point represents many thousands of children not born, and the effects build over decades: fewer young workers, more older people for each person of working age, and pressure on pensions and care.

The ethnic and regional spread is striking. A fertility rate of 0.7 among ethnic Chinese Malaysians means, on current patterns, fewer than one child per woman. At the other end, the mainly rural east-coast states of Terengganu and Kelantan still average more than two children per woman, while urbanised Penang is at 1.1. The gap between states shows that national averages can hide very different family patterns within one country, a point that also holds for large and varied countries such as India.

DOSM's quarterly figures also show that motherhood is coming later. In the second quarter of 2026, mothers aged 30 to 39 accounted for 52.6% of births, those aged 20 to 29 for 39.7%, and women aged 40 and over for 5.9%. Later first births usually mean fewer births in total, because there are fewer years left to have a second or third child.

Short-term: Fewer births mean smaller intakes for maternity wards, nurseries and, within a few years, primary schools, especially in low-fertility states and cities.

Long-term: A shrinking pool of young people will change family life itself: fewer siblings and cousins, more only children, and more elderly parents relying on one or two adult children for care. Policies on childcare, parental leave, housing and flexible work are likely to come under sharper debate as governments try to make it easier for couples to have the children they say they want.

Who is affected: Young couples deciding whether and when to have children, working women who carry much of the childcare load, older Malaysians who will depend on a smaller younger generation, and employers and planners who must prepare for a slower-growing workforce.

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