Penang is staring at a shrinking Chinese community and a school network built for far more children, a state executive councillor has warned. The birth rate among Chinese Malaysians has sunk to a new low, and Wong Hon Wai said the clearest evidence sits in Chinese primary school enrolment figures, as The Vibes reported.
Wong, the Paya Terubong assemblyman, said only nine of every 100 newborns nationwide are ethnic Chinese, while Chinese Malaysians account for 26 per cent of deaths each year. The gap leaves the community smaller by 17,486 people annually.
He put the school arithmetic in stark terms. “If we calculate based on the total number of 1,304 Chinese primary schools nationwide, in six years, there will be an average of only 26 Chinese students enrolled in each school.”
His own compilation for 2000 to 2025 shows Chinese newborns falling from more than 110,000 in 2020 to just over 30,000 today. The only rise in two years came in 2024, the Year of the Wooden Dragon.
Federal figures run the same way. The crude birth rate for Chinese Malaysians dropped to five births per 1,000 people in 2025, the lowest of any group, and their total fertility rate slipped from 0.9 to 0.7 children per woman, according to FMT. Penang recorded the lowest crude birth rate of any state at 9.3 per 1,000 and the lowest fertility rate at 1.1 children per woman, down from 1.2. Nationally, 396,175 babies were born in 2025, 18,743 fewer than the year before, while deaths rose 0.4 per cent to 199,807.
The state is funding fertility treatment and childcare support in response. Lim Siew Khim, who chairs the state committee for social development, welfare and non-Islamic affairs, said the push covers affordable childcare, family-friendly workplaces, career flexibility and parental support. Couples earning under RM10,000 a month can apply for intrauterine insemination funding at the LPPKN family centre in Bertam, limited to one cycle a year and two over a lifetime, Sinar Daily quoted her as saying. A joint study with Universiti Sains Malaysia found cost of living, childcare and family commitments drive couples to delay parenthood or limit the number of children. Lim said the state has not set a target for the total fertility rate.
Wong said Penang is moving into an ageing society, with more than 10 per cent of residents aged 65 and above, and that more incentives are needed to lift the birth rate. He added that the decline is not confined to the Chinese community, with projections pointing the same way for other groups.
In Penang, 16,722 babies were recorded in the period covered by his data, of which 3,235, or 19 per cent, were Chinese. Malay births totalled 10,507, or 63 per cent.
He called on Chinese educationists and community leaders to find workable answers soon, warning that falling enrolment affects teacher allocation, school resources and the long-term development of education. Some Chinese schools may have to admit more students from other ethnic groups, and schools that cannot attract students may need to be relocated.
“Faced with these problems, we must have a corresponding plan, such as Chinese schools that cannot attract students must be relocated, and we must also have a longer-term plan,” he said.
