Life Expectancy by Sex & Ethnicity
Data as of 2026Life expectancy at birth in Malaysia, with breakdowns by sex and ethnic group.
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How is this data produced?
Life tables are compiled by DOSM from deaths registered with the National Registration Department (JPN) and mid-year population estimates, using the Coale-Demeny (West) model life tables. To smooth out random fluctuations, the final life table for a year uses the average number of deaths in that year and the years immediately before and after it; preliminary figures use an estimate of deaths for the following year, while estimates for the latest year use deaths in that year only. Life expectancy is the average number of years a person is expected to live from a given age, if the age-specific mortality rates of that year were to remain the same throughout their lifetime. Life expectancy at birth is not affected by the age structure of the population.
What caveats I should bear in mind when using this data?
Figures for both sexes combined, citizens, non-citizens, and the split of Bumiputera into Malay and other Bumiputera are available from 1991 onwards; earlier years cover males and females for all persons, Bumiputera, Chinese and Indians. There are no figures for 1958-1965.
Each annual release revises the two preceding years: figures for the latest year are estimates and those for the year before are preliminary, and both will be revised in the next release. Every year in this dataset is taken from the most recent release that covers it. Figures from 2020 onwards are based on population estimates from the Population and Housing Census of Malaysia 2020, while figures for 2010-2019 are based on the 2010 Census and will be revised in future.
Publication(s) using this data
OpenDOSM features a dashboard on Life Expectancy where you can explore this data in a more interactive manner!
Metadata
Dataset description
Life expectancy at birth in Malaysia, with breakdowns by sex and ethnic group.
Variable definitions
- Date
- Sex
- Ethnicity
- Life Expectancy at Birth
Name in Dataset | Variable | Definition |
|---|---|---|
date (Date) | Date | The date in YYYY-MM-DD format, with MM-DD set to 01-01 since the data is at annual frequency |
sex (Categorical) | Sex | Either both sexes ('both'), male ('male') or female ('female') |
ethnicity (Categorical) | Ethnicity | One of all persons, including non-citizens ('overall'), all citizens ('citizen'), Bumiputera ('bumi'), Malay ('bumi_malay'), other Bumiputera ('bumi_other'), Chinese ('chinese'), Indian ('indian'), or non-citizens ('noncitizen') |
life_expectancy (Float) | Life Expectancy at Birth | Average number of years a newborn is expected to live |
Last updated:
30 Sept 2026, 18:00
Next update:
31 Oct 2027, 12:00
Data source(s)
- National Registration Department
- Department of Statistics Malaysia
URLs to dataset
License
This data is made open under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). A copy of the license is available Here.
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Data
Full Dataset (CSV)
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Full Dataset (Parquet)
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Code
Connect directly to the data with Python.
# If not already installed, do: pip install pandas fastparquet
import pandas as pd
URL_DATA = 'https://storage.dosm.gov.my/demography/life_expectancy.parquet'
df = pd.read_parquet(URL_DATA)
if 'date' in df.columns: df['date'] = pd.to_datetime(df['date'])
print(df)Sample OpenAPI query
The following code is an example of how to make an API query to retrieve the data catalogue mentioned above. You can use different programming languages by switching the code accordingly. For a complete guide on possible query parameters and syntax, please refer to the official Open API Documentation.
import requests
import pprint
url = "https://api.data.gov.my/data-catalogue?id=life_expectancy&limit=3"
response_json = requests.get(url=url).json()
pprint.pprint(response_json)
Department of Statistics Malaysia
© 2026 Department of Statistics Malaysia
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