PUTRAJAYA: The migration rate in Malaysia decreased to 0.5%, or 158,800 persons, in 2022 as compared to 484,100 persons in 2020, according to the Migration Survey 2022 conducted by the statistics department.
Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin said the implementation of the movement control order (MCO) to curb the spread of Covid-19 until the first half of 2021 had influenced the decline in migration rate.
He said intra-state migration composition increased to 62.3% in 2022, as compared to 58.4% in 2020, while inter-state migration declined to 30.3% as compared to 31.2% in 2020, and international migration decreased from 10.4% in 2020 to 7.4% in 2022.
The three states that recorded the highest percentage of intra-state migration in 2022 were Johor, with 91.9%, followed by Kedah at 72.9% and Selangor at 71.9%, while Negeri Sembilan and Perlis recorded the lowest at 38% respectively.
“Intra-state migration by migration flow showed that migration from urban to urban remained the highest at 79.3% followed by urban to rural at 14.7%, rural to urban 2.4% and rural to rural 3.6%,” he said in a statement.
He said all states recorded higher movement from urban to urban areas in 2022, while Terengganu was the only state that recorded higher migration from urban to rural at 41.1% compared with 10.6% in 2020.
“Selangor recorded the highest movement of internal migrants with a total of 29,200 in-migrants. Most of the in-migrants to Selangor came from Johor with 1,400 persons and Kelantan (700 persons).
“Selangor also recorded the highest number of intra-state migrants at 26,500 persons, followed by Johor (22,400 persons) and Kedah (7,300 persons),” he said.
Uzir said the highest outflow of internal migrants was also recorded in Selangor at 37,200 persons, where the majority of out-migrants migrated to Negeri Sembilan (3,500 persons) and Kelantan (1,800 persons).
He said, in terms of the demographics for internal migrations, those aged 25 to 34 years had the highest internal migration rate in 2022 at 0.9%, while those from 65 and above was the age group that migrated the least, at 0.1%.
“Following family remained as the main reason for internal migration in 2022 at 47.3%, followed by environmental factors at 19.3%, career (18.3%), marriage and divorce (5.7%), education (5.4%), and others (3.9%),” he said.
The survey was conducted with a reference period from 2021 to 2022. Migrants in the report refer to those whose usual place of residence is different at two points of time within a period of one year and do not include those who move within the same locality.