Page 58 - AEI Insights 2019 - Vol. 5, Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 5, Issue 1, 2019

there are very few comparative papers. Additionally, many of the papers written by
demographers focus on mathematical models and analyses of population developments,
whereas I will focus on the politics and policies of population change in the two countries under
research.

To this end, I will first give a concise description of the major demographic trends in Indonesia
and Malaysia before drawing some tentative conclusions about the demographic challenges for
both countries in a comparative perspective.

The Political Demography of Indonesia

Since its independence in 1945, Indonesia has witnessed an impressive population growth.
Within 40 years the population more than doubled form 72.8 million people in 1950 to 181.4
million people in 1990. Until the mid-1960s Indonesia was an extremely poor and
underdeveloped country. Since then, the country has steadily developed and is a now regarded
as a lower middle income country in World Bank terms. In so far, one of the explanatory factors
of the rapid population growth is the improvement of the living conditions for the average
population.
Since 1990 the population growth continued, but with slower pace (see table 1). Population
growth peaked near 2.6% per year in the late 1960s when Indonesia’s population was around
110 million. For the next 25 years after 2015, population growth is estimated to be around 1.1%
and it is projected to decline to 0.2% by 2050 when the population is expected to reach 321
million (Kohler/Behrman 2017: 6).

Total Population

1990 181.436,8 mio.
2015 257.563,8 mio.

2040 312.439,3 mio.
Table 1: Total Population of Indonesia, Data from Database Global Political Demography v1_20171006

Indonesia has currently (end of 2017) a population of more than 260 million people and is
expected to grow by 50 million more people until 2040. The UN predicts that the country will
have more than 312 million citizens then.

The birth rate of Indonesia was very high in 1960 with 44.56 births per 1000 citizens, still very
high in 1970 with 39.97 and only became lower in 1980 with 33.40. In 1990 it was 25.81 births
per 1000 citizens. The birth rate of the Indonesian population fell steeply from the 1960 until
the mid-1990s, but has then declined only slowly since the mid-90s (see Figure 1 below). The
numbers were 21.76 in the year 2000, 20.86 in 2010 and 19.35 in 2010.

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