PETALING JAYA: Malaysia's average life expectancy at birth has gone down from 74.4 years in 2012 to 73.4 years in 2022 due to the increase in the number of excess deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Among Asean countries, Malaysia now has a lower life expectancy than Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam.
In a recent statement, the Statistics Department said the reduction in life expectancy was found among both men and women for both Malaysians and non-Malaysians in the country.
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A graph showed the recent drop in life expectancy to be the biggest in the past 10 years.
However, women are still projected to outlive men by 4.5 years in 2022.
For Malaysians, life expectancy for men went down from 71.7 years in 2012 to 70.8 years in 2022, and for women, from 76.8 years to 75.6 years.
For non-Malaysians, the life expectancy went down from 77.2 to 76.4 years for men, while a slight increase was recorded for women, from 77.1 years to 77.8 years.
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The decrease in life expectancy in 2022 is also true for those at age 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.
