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The socioeconomic factors in constructing women fertility index: a Malaysian case study
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Item type | Article |
Subjects | 300 Social sciences > 305 Social groups |
Division/Agency | LPPKN - National Population and Family Development Board, Malaysia: Population and Family Research Division |
Keywords | Fertility, Socioeconomic, Malaysia |
Additional Information | |
Abstract | Women fertility is rated by the average number of children a woman will have during her childbearing years. Malaysia is now facing a population crisis and the fertility rate continues to decline. This situation will have implications for the age structure of the population. Malaysia is expected to reach aging population status by the year 2035. As the aging population has a very long average life expectancy, the government needs to spend a lot on medical costs for senior citizens and need to increase budgets for pensions. The government may be required to increase tax revenues to support the growing older population. The falling fertility rate requires proper control by relevant authorities, especially through planning and implementation of strategic and effective measures. Hence, this paper aims to develop a fertility index using correlation and Shannon's entropy method. There are two main results from this analysis which are the factor rank and fertility index for each state. The three most important factors that influence fertility in Malaysia based on correlation method listed the number of females living in urban areas, number of females employed, and family planning methods while Shannon's entropy method listed female tertiary education attainments, number of divorces, and family planning methods. Next, the fertility index show that Selangor, Johor, and Sarawak are among the states with the highest values. On the other end of the spectrum, Terengganu, W.P. Labuan, and Perlis are ranked in the last positions. As a summary, the weighted calculation based on the correlation and entropy give different results in terms of rank the factors influencing the fertility. However, the results of both methods show that Selangor has the highest fertility index. From this study, the government may design the appropriate policies to mitigate dwindling fertility rates among Malaysian women. |