Why young Malaysians are thinking twice about having children

 Financial anxieties and fears about the future are turning marriage and parenthood into difficult, deeply calculated decisions for many youths.

From Dr Julitta Onabanjo

Every few months, a new set of statistics about Malaysia’s birth rate is released and, like clockwork, the public conversation takes a somewhat panicked turn.

We see the numbers – for instance, those that indicate Malaysia’s total fertility rate hovering at a historic low of 1.6 – and our immediate reaction is to point a finger at the younger generation and wonder why they are turning away from the traditional family formation.

However, the newly released UNFPA Demographic Futures Survey titled “Lives, Choices and Futures: What young people want and what shapes their decisions about relationships and parenthood” reframes this narrative by showcasing the human story behind the numbers.

Young Malaysians haven’t suddenly lost their capacity for love or family; instead, they are looking at the realities of modern life and the changing world around them with a mix of fear and their own brand of social responsibility.

The decisions they make about their bodies, their lives, and their futures are an honest response to a socioeconomic landscape that feels increasingly hostile and uncertain.

The social psychology of youth

When one considers why young adults are delaying marriage or downscaling their desired family sizes, we have to take a closer look at the psychological weight they carry. The UNFPA report captures a generation acutely aware of macro-level crises.

Not only are Gen Z navigating uncertain local job markets, but they are also actively absorbing the realities of global conflict and instability, economic inequity, and environmental degradation, including climate change.

When a young Malaysian is confronted with these difficult realities, it profoundly shapes their social psychology. It brings about a quiet, existential question: is it responsible to bring a child into this world?

Combined with intense financial anxieties and limited upward mobility, these fears turn marriage and parenthood into difficult and deeply calculated decisions, rather than an automatic next step in life.

Furthermore, the digital revolution may have increased human connectivity on the surface; however, we find people feel more isolated from each other than ever. In this environment, fostering the kind of vulnerability and interpersonal skills required for relationship and family formation can feel like an even steeper hill to climb.

Where did the village go?

The old saying goes, “it takes a village to raise a child”, but the traditional communal approach and extended family structures that earlier generations found normal have largely faded from, or never really existed in, our modern urban centres.

Today, young families, for the most part, operate as isolated nuclear units. Support that a community used to provide freely must now be purchased at a cost.

Woven alongside this nuclear isolation is the enduring unequal burden of care, a phenomenon that continues to penalise women. Despite strides in education and career access, outdated gender norms mean that the structural and emotional weight of running a home and caring for children still falls disproportionately on mothers.

Furthermore, true gender equity is stymied by a lack of robust protections. Young women face systemic barriers and career penalties for choosing motherhood, and the persistence of violence and harmful practices in society leaves them feeling unprotected and unsupported. .

When women lack a bulletproof safety net for their rights and autonomy, choosing to start a family becomes an immense risk to their hard-won independence.

Add to this the expanding care burdens of the “sandwich generation”. Malaysia is ageing rapidly, meaning that Gen Z is currently watching their older Gen Y/millennial peers balancing to support the care demands of ageing parents, especially those who lack retirement funds, and the demanding task of raising their Gen Alpha children.

More (and higher) seats at the table

When governments panic over shrinking populations, there is a temptation to roll out superficial, transactional cash incentives and national lectures. But the UNFPA report reveals a profound truth: government appeals are the absolute lowest-ranked motivation for having children.

Young people choose parenthood for the intrinsic joy and emotional fulfilment it brings; they don’t do it to hit a macroeconomic target.

If we want to build a society where young people feel safe enough to build families, the policies need to be designed by them, not just for them. Young Malaysians are the ones living these realities, making them the best placed to identify exactly what barriers stand in their way.

Unfortunately, our decision-making spaces don’t reflect this. While the median age in Malaysia is just around 30 years, the average age of political representatives in the halls of power sits closer to 50 or 60 years. In fact, only a tiny fraction of our MPs are under the age of 35.

This massive generational gap creates a disconnect between the lawmakers and the lived experiences of the youth. We urgently need active platforms for youth participation and partnerships where Gen Z can co-create policies on workplace flexibility, universal childcare, and gender equity, among others.

The path forward

Our youth still dream of deep connections and nurturing families of their own. Instead of looking at the demographic shift as a failure of youth values, let’s see it as a call to action. Young people aren’t asking for handouts; what they’re asking for is a fair, supportive ecosystem. So if we want to build a society where young people feel safe enough to achieve their family goals, our policies must move beyond temporary, transactional measures.

Drawing on the key findings of the UNFPA Demographic Futures Survey, the path forward requires urgent structural investments that directly return agency to young adults. This includes:

• Establishing a secured transition to adulthood: alleviate the baseline anxieties of youth by actively providing pathways to secure, stable employment and access to affordable housing.
• Making parenthood accessible and affordable: governments must design comprehensive, family-friendly policies centred on infant care and affordable childcare, alongside paid leave provisions that cover all primary caretakers.
• Promoting true gender-equal partnerships: address traditional gender equity gaps such as childbirth-related workplace discrimination against women, and establish structures where men and women equally share domestic and parenthood responsibilities and the rewards of caretaking.
• Strengthening national data and youth representation: Invest heavily in evidence-based, data-driven demographic foresight. This means utilising real-time population surveys to directly inform policy while building formal, independent, youth-led platforms to ensure young adults are active, meaningful contributors to the decisions that shape their lives.

At its heart, Malaysia’s demographic shift is not a shortcoming of youth ambition, but a profound expression of parental responsibility from a generation that refuses to offer their children anything less than safety and stability.

Young people still dream of love, home, and the laughter of future generations, but they are waiting on a world that can protect those dreams. - FMT

Dr Julitta Onabanjo is the UNFPA country representative for Malaysia.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT