Corak dan Penentu Umur Kahwin Pertama Wanita di Semenanjung Malaysia

Abstract

Age at first marriage of women has become the focus of attention of scholars and policy makers because early marriage is believed to contribute to high fertility. However in most developing countries, especially in Asia there has been a transition from traditional to moden patterns of marriage, which are more toward late marriages and higher rates of celibacy.


This paper aims to identify and analyse the effect of socio-economic development on age at first marriage in Peninsular Malaysia. Age at first marriage is the main component of intermediate variables that determine fertility. This paper reveals that several factors related to socio-economic development and demography play an important role in determining age at first marriage in Peninsular Malaysia. However there is no direct correlation between socio-economic or demographic factors to age at first marriage. The influence of socio-economic development on age at first marriage has to be seen in conjunction with several other variables such as ethnicity, age, educational status, residential background, working status and status of women.