PETALING JAYA: In the first quarter of this year, 49 babies were born every hour, according to the Demographic Statistics released by the Statistics Department.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin stated that, on average, 1,182 babies were born each day during the first quarter of 2024.
"On average, one baby was born every minute, 49 babies every hour, and 1,182 babies each day in the first quarter of 2024," he said in a statement on Tuesday (May 14).
Dr Uzir noted that the number of live births decreased by 9.4% to 106,386 from 117,413 in the corresponding period of the previous year.
He reported that male babies outnumbered female babies with 54,747 births compared to 51,639 births of female babies.
"Selangor recorded the highest number of live births with 19,951, which is 18.8%, while Labuan had the lowest with 323 births or 0.3%," he stated.
Dr Uzir said that mothers aged between 30 and 39 years accounted for the highest number of live births, at 52.5% or 55,864, in the first quarter of 2024, followed by mothers aged 20-29 at 40.0%, and mothers aged 40 and above at 6.0%.
Mothers under 20 years of age with live births comprised 1.5% of the demographic.
Dr Uzir mentioned that Malays constituted 68.8%, or 73,136, of the total live births in the first quarter of 2024, a rise from 67.6% in 2023.
He said other bumiputra live births also increased to 12.7% in the first quarter of this year, up from 12.6% in the same period of the previous year.
Dr Uzir noted that the number of live births for the Chinese and Indians decreased to 8.8% and 3.7%, respectively, compared to 9.7% and 4.3% in the first quarter of 2023.
To date, Malaysia's total population increased by 2.3% to 34 million in the first quarter of 2024, compared to 33.2 million in the same period last year.
"The total population comprises 90%, or 30.6 million, Malaysian citizens and 10%, or 3.4 million non-citizens," he added.
The country's male population has increased to 17.8 million from 17.4 million in the first quarter of 2023, and the female population has risen to 16.1 million from 15.8 million in the same period.
