Declining birth rate: Where are all our children?
ALARM bells are ringing as recent statistics have shown that Sarawak's fertility rate and population growth are on a steep and rapid downward trend.
This has been happening without pause since 1970 when the number of babies born numbered about 40,000 per year.
Now, it's only half – at 20,000!
On July 15, Sarawak's Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah said that our fertility rate had declined drastically from a high of 4.9 per cent to only 1.6 per cent in 2023.
We need a fertility rate of a minimum of two per cent to just re-populate ourselves!
Our birth rate, in actual numbers, is now only 12.5 per 1,000 people, versus the national average of 12.9.
There are many reasons attributable to these statistics, some of which may not appear to be obvious or are widely known.
According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM), the average age of Malaysians getting married rose from 24.7 years in 1990 to 28.9 in 2022.
In the average family, women today have one or two children as compared to five in 1970.
From a personal perspective, this has certainly been the classic case in my family too.
My grandfather, born in 1896 and died in 1982, had 14 children: 10 boys and four girls.
My father, born in 1926 and died in 2023, had five: three boys and two girls.
Me, born in 1950, have a boy and two girls; of my three children, they have just two – both boys.
This has been the story of how our typical Sarawakian families have not replaced themselves insofar as head count is concerned.
I am sure that it has happened along the same trajectory with most other families, regardless of race, religion or creed.
Back in the 1970s, the man in the family would virtually be the sole breadwinner, leaving the wife at home with domestic chores and raising children.
The trend then was living with parents or there were elders in the house with them as well.
After getting married, the expectation was to immediately start a family, and with traditional and conservative lifestyles, there would be little said about 'family planning' or birth control.
Prior to the 1980s, one would still need a doctor's prescription for birth control pills and contraceptives like condoms were not as freely available on sale, only at pharmacies and the odd 'specialist stores'.
Compare that situation then to that after the 2000s when you can buy all these easily online, sight unseen and delivered to your very doorstep.
In the 1950s, that 'Silent Generation' (those born between 1928 and 1945) of the time had married young, usually between ages of 18 and 23, and they came of age during the post-World War II boom.
Without the mass availability of birth control and coupled with the added security of the presence of other family members, usually parents, living under the same roof, that generation had felt secure with bringing children into this world.
This trend was to continue for the next two generations: the 'Baby Boomers' (those born between 1946 and 1964), and even up till Gen X (those born between 1965 and 1979).
It is my belief that things had started going downhill from the 'Millennials' – also known as 'Gen Y' (those born between 1981 and 1996) and continued into Gen Z (1997-2012) – also known as 'iGen' or 'Centennials'.
The present Gen Alpha (2013-2025) will only reach the age of maturity of 21 in 2034, so they are completely out of our discussion in this matter of re-producing the future generation.
Starting with the Baby Boomers, the trend was for both the mother and the father going to work, leaving behind their children either to some elders' care or in a kindergarten or playschool.
Domestic help was still commonly available, and their wages were reasonable.
By late 1990s, there was a seismic shift in the demand for such domestics as more and more young married couples took up employment in many diverse industries and professions. This had created a situation where the supply could not meet the high demand.
By this time too, domestics from homes in and around Sarawak as well as those from a neighbouring country had also discovered more attractive employment outside of the state, as they looked towards Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, and even further afield to the Middle East and the Far East, enticed with double or even triple of whatever they could earn back home.
At the same time, the cost of educating pre-schoolers had also gone up in line with rising costs of living, inflation and the weak ringgit vis-a-vis other foreign currencies.
This double-whammy had caused what had initially appeared to be an attractive and comfortable double-income family earnings to be eroded; thereby leaving not much savings after all these expenses.
Most families had taken the decision to either stop at just one child, or at most two, so that they could plan their future educational needs within their budgets.
A few more young families took other decisions: some to curtail one income and stop working; some to relocate and seek new horizons; many had either downsized or gone back to live with a parent.
There is a dire and serious social implication if this downward trend continues.
We are on track to become an aged nation (no longer are we in that 'ageing stage') by 2030 – that's just five years away!
Our life expectancy has continued to increase.
A baby born in 2023 is now expected to live on average up to 74.8 years – an increase of 13.2 years to one born in 1970, whose expectancy was only 61.6 years then.
In less than a decade, as an aged nation, we face a shrinking working-age population and a growing elderly population.
There will be fewer people around to support the elderly folks, to care for them and financially fend for their welfare and health needs.
It is not uncommon these days to read news reports in some ageing countries like Japan and Korea, and even in Europe, where many elderly people lived on their own, had died alone, and had gone unnoticed for days or even weeks.
Sarawak's population stands at 2,907,500, of which senior citizens aged 60 and above had already made up 15 per cent (436,125) in 2020.
It is estimated that by 2028, this would double to 30 per cent (872,250), which in reality, means that every third person you meet will be a senior.
In a press report on Aug 6 last year, Dato Seri Fatimah Abdullah had assured us: 'My ministry is carrying out a statewide survey to look into these issues facing Sarawak society.'
She had also said that the ministry would work out 'detailed planning to care for more elderly people every year', and 'would study the measures being taken by governments of developed countries to care for the elderly'.
'Sarawak needs to introduce such measures into its community development planning without delay,' she was quoted as having said.
It would have been exactly one year by August next month, dear minister.
I hope there's been some positive development from the ministry regarding these matters – did you say 'without delay'?
In the meantime, all we can do is to urge our married couples here to be more 'productive', so as to ensure that at least we can replace ourselves in our Sarawak population.
Genesis 1:28: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the seas and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'
Amen.
* The opinions expressed in this article are the columnist's own and do not reflect the view of the newspaper. ageing population declining birthrate
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