Page 243 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 8

CPS2269 TEY Nai Peng et al.
This paper is an exploratory and illustrative study with the aim to stimulate
spatial demographic analysis and more effective use of demographic data for
policy making. It deals with district level analysis on population density,
population growth and distribution/ concentration, fertility and mortality,
pupil-teacher ratio in the secondary school, and population ageing.
The main sources of data for this paper came from the published reports
of the population censuses, vital statistics reports, and state/district social
statistics report. Simple tabulations, scatterplots and maps were used to
present the findings.

Population Density and Rate of Population Growth
Malaysia has a population density of about 100 persons per square
kilometer in 2010, and this ranged from 19 persons per square kilometer in
Sarawak to 6,891 in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. In Peninsular
Malaysia, besides Kuala Lumpur, Timur Laut and Petaling are the two most
densely populated districts (with a population density of 4.330 and 3,012
respectively). On the other hand, Gua Musang, Jerantut, Lipis and Ulu Perak
have the lowest population density of around 13- 17 persons per square
kilometer.
Between 2000 and 2015, the rate of population growth was estimated to
range from 1.2 percent per annum in Perak to 2.6 percent in Selangor. The
variation in the rate of population growth is even more striking across the
districts, ranging from -1 percent in Jempol to a high of 6 percent in Sepang
during the inter-censal period 2000-2010. Figure 1 shows that most of the
densely populated districts have high rate of population growth, and this will
result in further concentration of population in areas of rapid growth and
aggravating regional inequality.

Figure 1: Population density and rate of population growth, by district
Sources: DOSM, Basic Population Characteristics by Administrative Districts, 2010; and Population
Censuses, 2000, 2010

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