KUALA LUMPUR – The marriage rate dropped by 0.5% last year, while divorces went up 43.1% in the latest statistics released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM) today.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said there were 214,824 marriages last year, which is a drop of half a percent as compared to 215,973 in 2021.
By ethnic group, Muslim marriages saw the highest drop, by 4.1% from 176,002 in 2021 to 168,726 last year, he said in a statement.
Non-Muslim marriages, however, increased by 15.3% from 39,971 in 2021 to 46,098 in 2022.
On the age of those getting married, he said the median age for men was 28 years in 2022, while it increased for women to 27 years compared to 26 in 2021.
The highest number of marriages falls under the age group of 25 to 29 years for both men and women.
The oldest groom on record in 2022 was 92 while the oldest bride the same year was 86, Uzir added.
In terms of the age gap between spouses, records show that 2.9% of males aged 65 years and older had married women aged 24 years and below, while 3.5% of females aged 65 years and older married younger males 24 years old and below.
As for inter-ethnic marriages, they made up almost 7% of total marriages in the last year, and is a drop of 15.4% between 2021 and 2022.
Within ethnic groups, 44.2% of Muslim marriages were inter-racial, while among non-Muslim marriages, 55.8% wedded a partner of a different ethnicity.
Meanwhile, the number of divorces increased by 43.1% from 43,936 in 2021 to 62,890 last year.
Of this, Muslim divorces were the highest, increasing by 45.8% between 2021 and 2022.
Most divorces were happening to men in the 35 to 39 age range, and to women in the 30 to 34 age group.
The DoSM’s figures on marriage and divorce come a day after two MPs argued about polygamy in the Dewan Rakyat.
Yesterday, DAP’s Yeo Bee Yin (PH-Puchong) criticised PAS lawmaker Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man (PN-Kubang Kerian) for being sexist with his suggestion that polygamy is a “solution” to solve the “problem” of there being 4.8 million unmarried women. – November 23, 2023