When citizenship becomes a liability, not a privilege

 

NATIONAL Registration Department (JPN) director-general Datuk Badril Hisham Alias recently released the current statistics on the number of Malaysians who have relinquished their citizenship in the past five years. The figures are indeed overwhelming, to say the least.

Did sixty-one thousand Malaysians wake up one morning and casually decide to surrender their citizenship? They did so over five years—steadily, deliberately, and overwhelmingly in one direction: Singapore.

The fact alone should shatter the comforting myth that this is merely about “personal choice” or “family reasons”.

When 93.78% of those renouncing Malaysian citizenship choose one neighbouring country, the issue is not migration. It is systemic failure.

Citizenship, in theory, is supposed to represent belonging, opportunity, and protection. But for a growing number of Malaysians—especially those in their prime working years—it has become an economic handicap.

Lower wages, slower career mobility, rising living costs, and weak social safety nets make remaining Malaysian not an act of loyalty, but a financial sacrifice.

The numbers tell a brutal story. The largest group relinquishing citizenship are aged 21 to 40—young professionals, skilled workers, parents raising families. These are precisely the people Malaysia claims it wants to retain. Instead, it is exporting them.

Women lead this exodus with 35,000 women renouncing their Malaysian citizenship with reasons other than due to marriage. It reflects how Malaysia’s policies repeatedly place women in impossible positions—between family unity and legal status, between children’s security and national allegiance. When the system forces families to choose, families will choose survival over symbolism.

The Singapore factor exposes an uncomfortable truth. Malaysia competes directly with Singapore—and is losing badly. Not because Singapore “steals” our people but because it offers what Malaysia increasingly does not—predictable wages, dignified work, efficient governance, and a future that feels planned rather than improvised.

Yet instead of asking why citizens leave, we cling to rigid citizenship laws that punish global mobility. Malaysia’s refusal to recognise dual citizenship may satisfy legal purists, but in practice it pushes talented Malaysians into permanent exit rather than continued engagement.

Citizenship revocation for voting abroad may be constitutional  but it is also self-defeating. In a globalised economy, this rigidity does not protect sovereignty; it shrinks it.

No country can patriotism-shame its way out of an economic problem. People do not abandon Malaysia because they hate it. They leave because Malaysia is no longer working for them.

If this trend continues, the question will no longer be how many Malaysians are leaving but who will still be left to build the country. 

KT Maran
Seremban, Negri Sembilan

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.

-  Focus Malaysia.