Women live 6.9 years longer than men in S'pore

And other amazing statistics from ICA.

Belmont Lay | July 13, 2018, 03:03 AM

Data and statistics about Singapore can be found if you know where to look and what to parse.

Annual numbers

A set of annual statistics released by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) in June 2018 is chock-full of interesting numbers, such as the number of births, deaths, teenage pregnancies and suicides in Singapore, plus causes of death and many other details.

For those who have spent time understanding Singapore's demographic challenges and population make-up, the following details might not be new to you.

But for those who haven't looked that closely, this might be news.

Here's a look at those numbers from the data by the Department of Statistics.

1. From 2016 to 2017, live births have fallen

The number of live births was 39,615 in 2017, which is a decrease of 4 percent compared with 41,251 in 2016.

The crude birth rate declined from 9.4 to 8.9 per 1,000 Singapore residents.

Among the newborns, 23,360 (59.0%) were Chinese, 7,315 (18.5%) Malays, 4,421 (11.2%) Indians and 4,519 (11.4%) of newborns were of other ethnicity.

2. From 2016 to 2017, deaths have increased

Deaths and still births registered were 20,905 and 99 respectively.

This represents an increase of 888 (4.4%) in the numbers of deaths registered, as compared with 20,017 deaths registered in 2016.

3. Teenage births have fallen

There were 310 live births born to teenagers aged 19 and below in 2017, a reduction of 6.6 percent as compared with 332 in 2016.

Breakdown according to ethnicity: Malay (52.6%), Chinese (30.6%), Indians (10.6%) and other ethnic groups (6.1%).

4. Single parent births

In 2017, 412 live births were registered without the father’s name.

Out of these 412 single parent births, 85 (20.6%) births were born to teenagers age 19 and below.

5. First-time mothers age

The median age of resident live births for first-time mothers was 30.6 years at the time of giving birth.

Malay mothers have their first child at 27.7 years, against 31.3 years, 29.8 years and 31.0 years for Chinese, Indians and other ethnic groups respectively.

6. Types of birth

38,409 mothers had single births, 588 had twins (including six with one live births and one still births) and 12 had triplets.

7. Causes of death

In 2017, malignant neoplasms and heart and hypertensive diseases were the two common causes of death in Singapore.

Altogether, they accounted for more than half (52.8%) of total deaths.

Lung & respiratory system diseases and cerebrovascular diseases were another two prevalent causes responsible for 22.8 percent and 6.3 percent of death cases respectively.

Unnatural causes such as accidents, suicides and other external causes made up 4.0 percent.

8. Average age at death

17,192 deceased persons in 2017 were aged 60 years and over.

Persons aged between 50 and 59 years old accounted for 10.1 percent of the total deaths.

There were 94 infant deaths (age less than one year old).

9. More males than females died

Males outnumbered females in mortality, giving a ratio of 1,191 males to 1,000 females.

In terms of causes of death, males registered a higher proportion in heart and hypertensive diseases and accidents, while females registered a higher proportion in kidney and disorders of urinary system and cerebrovascular diseases.

10. Females lived longer than males

Females lived longer than their male counterparts.

The average age at death was 73.2 years for males compared to 80.1 years for females, a difference of 6.9 years.

The sex differential in average age at death changed little over the years. This means all along females have tended to outlived males by this number of years.

For natural causes of death, females live significantly longer than male except for malignant neoplasms.

11. Different ages of death for different ethnic groups

There were differences in the average age at death (AA) among different ethnic groups.

The AA for Chinese was 78.0 years compared with 70.6 years for Malays, 69.5 years for Indians and 65.9 years for other ethnic groups.

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12. Infant mortality

Of the 94 infant deaths registered in 2017, 44 were males and 50 were females.

The main causes of infant death were Perinatal Originated Conditions (41.5%) and Congenital Anomalies (35.1%).

The infant mortality rate in 2017 was 2.2 per 1,000 resident live births.

You can view the entire Report on Registration of Births and Deaths PDF document here.