Malaysia’s average life expectancy at birth has decreased by a year, from 74.4 years in 2012 to 73.4 years in 2022, according to the Statistics Department. This seems to be a result of the increase in excess fatalities during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Malaysia now has a shorter life expectancy than Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, and Vietnam.
The department revealed that both men and women in the country, Malaysians and non-Malaysians, had shorter life expectancies.
A graph shows that the current decline in life expectancy is the largest in 10 years.
However, it is still anticipated that women would outlive men in 2022 by 4.5 years.
Men’s life expectancy in Malaysia decreased from 71.7 years in 2012 to 70.8 years in 2022, and women’s life expectancy dropped from 76.8 years to 75.6 years.
Meanwhile, life expectancy for non-Malaysian men decreased from 77.2 to 76.4 years, while for non-Malaysian women it increased very little, from 77.1 to 77.8 years.
The decrease in life expectancy in 2022 is also true for those aged 15, 60, and 65 years.
The Chinese ethnic group has the highest life expectancy at birth with men at 73.5 years and women, 79.4 years.
Of all the states, Selangor has the highest life expectancy for the period between 2020 until this year. Terengganu has the lowest for 2020 and 2021, while Kedah has the lowest for this year.
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