Life Tables by Sex & Ethnicity
Data as of 2026Abridged life tables for Malaysia by sex, ethnic group and age group. The preview table shows data for the latest year only, but you may download the data in full.
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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?
Life tables for both sexes combined, and for Malay and other Bumiputera, are available from 2020 onwards. Life tables for 'Others' (other ethnic groups including non-citizens) were last published for 2025, and those for all citizens and non-citizens begin in 2024.
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
Abridged life tables for Malaysia by sex, ethnic group and age group. The preview table shows data for the latest year only, but you may download the data in full.
Variable definitions
- Date
- Ethnicity
- Sex
- Age Group
- Probability of Dying
- Deaths
- Central Mortality Rate
- Survivors
- Person-Years Lived
- Survival Ratio
- Total Person-Years Remaining
- Life Expectancy
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 |
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'), other ethnic groups including non-citizens ('other'), or non-citizens ('noncitizen') |
sex (Categorical) | Sex | Either both sexes ('both'), male ('male') or female ('female') |
age (Categorical) | Age Group | Under 1 year ('0'), 1-4 years ('1-4'), then 5-year age groups (5-9, 10-14, ..., 75-79); 80+ is the oldest group |
prob_death (Float) | Probability of Dying | Probability that a person alive at the start of the age group dies before reaching the end of it (nqx) |
deaths (Integer) | Deaths | Number of deaths within the age group, out of a hypothetical cohort of 100,000 births (ndx) |
mortality_rate (Float) | Central Mortality Rate | Deaths within the age group per person-year lived in it (nmx) |
survivors (Integer) | Survivors | Number of the 100,000 births still alive at the start of the age group (lx) |
person_years (Integer) | Person-Years Lived | Total number of years lived by the cohort within the age group (nLx) |
survival_ratio (Float) | Survival Ratio | Proportion of persons in the age group who survive into the next 5-year age group (nSx). For '0', from birth to age group 0-4; for '1-4', from age group 0-4 to 5-9; for '75-79', into 80+. Not applicable to 80+ |
person_years_remaining (Integer) | Total Person-Years Remaining | Total number of years lived by the cohort from the start of the age group onwards (Tx) |
life_expectancy (Float) | Life Expectancy | Average number of further years a person at the start of the age group is expected to live (ex) |
Last updated:
30 Sep 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.
Download
Data
Full Dataset (CSV)
Recommended for individuals seeking an Excel-friendly format.
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Full Dataset (Parquet)
Recommended for data scientists seeking to work with data via code.
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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/lifetables.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=lifetables&limit=3"
response_json = requests.get(url=url).json()
pprint.pprint(response_json)
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