Christmas Island
Minority populations More than 981 Australia 92,337 United Kingdom 63,000 | Singapore 385,979 Brunei 70,000 United States 26,179 | |
The Malaysian diaspora are Malaysian emigrants from Malaysia and their descendants that reside in a foreign country. Population estimates vary from a conservative seven hundred thousand to one million diaspora, both descendants of early emigrants from Malaysia, as well as more recent emigrants from Malaysia. The largest of these foreign communities are on the Australian external territory of Christmas Island where they make up the majority as well as significant minorities in Singapore, Australia, Brunei and the United Kingdom.
Contents
Emigration from Malaysia is a complex demographic phenomenon existing for decades and having a number of reasons. The process is the reverse of the immigration to Malaysia. Malaysia does not keep track of emigration, and counts of Malaysians abroad are thus only available courtesy of statistics kept by the destination countries.
Since independence, a total of 688,766 naturalised foreigners had been granted Malaysian citizenship while 10,828 individuals had their citizenships revoked.
Reasons of emigration
Malaysia is a net immigration country, meaning more people are arriving to Malaysia. than leaving it. Many of the emigrants from Malaysia do not plan to become permanent emigrants, but to be expatriates (expats) for a limited amount of time. There is a scarcity of official records in this domain. Given the high dynamics of the emigration-prone groups, emigration from Malaysia remains indiscernible from temporary country leave.
Citizenship
Malaysians can only lose their citizenship in a very limited number of ways, and anyone born to at least one Malaysian parent, or born on Malaysian soil, is considered to be a Malaysian citizen. It is not automatic for a child born abroad to one Malaysian parent to obtain Malaysian citizenship if the Malaysian parent has been living abroad for a long time. Few Malaysians living abroad renounce their citizenship, with the long-term trend being in the low-hundreds per year.
Malaysians residing overseas who have not registered as a Normal Elector before or who wish to be registered as an Absent Voter to participate in any Malaysian election may register with the respective consulate generals, embassies or high commissioners. As of 2013, only 8,756 Malaysians (1%) out of over 700,000 Malaysians living abroad have registered as postal voters. 6,092 of the 8,756 registered citizens overseas or 69.82% had cast their votes at 100 Malaysian missions worldwide for the Malaysian general election, 2013.
Population by continent
The list below is of the main countries hosting Malaysian populations. Those shown first with exact counts are enumerations of Malaysians who have immigrated to those countries and are legally resident there, does not include those who were born there to one or two Malaysian parents, does not necessarily include those born in Malaysia to parents temporarily in Malaysia and moved with parents by right of citizenship rather than immigration, and does not necessarily include temporary expatriates.
Asia
Many Malaysians have relatives in Brunei, similar to Singapore, especially the Bruneian Malay. There are approximately 9% Malaysian diaspora in Brunei.
As of 2012 there are 15000 Malaysians studying in China.
Malaysians in India consist of expatriates and international students from Malaysia as well as Indian people of Malaysian descent. Most of them are Malaysians of Indian origin. As of 2011, an estimated 2,500 Malaysians, mostly working for Malaysian-based companies as well as 2,000 students, reside in India, mainly in South India.
The overseas Malaysian diaspora in Singapore is one of the largest with the number standing at 385,979 in 2010, with most of them being ethnic Chinese.
There were 6,000 Malaysians living and working in the United Arab Emirates as of 2010.
There are around 5,000 Malaysians living and working in Qatar as of 2013 statistics.
Around ten thousand Malaysian students have benefited from Taiwan's overseas compatriot education policy, with the country looking for more Malaysian students.
Oceania
At the 2006 Census 92,335 Australian residents stated that they were born in Malaysia. 64,855 Malaysian born Australian residents declared having Chinese ancestry (either alone or with another ancestry), 12,057 declared a Malay ancestry and 5,848 declared an Indian ancestry.
As of 2006 census, there is around 14,547 Malaysian-born people lived in New Zealand.
Europe
The Malaysian community in the UK is one of the west's largest, this is mainly due to the influence of the British Empire on Malaysia. The 2001 UK Census recorded 49,886 Malaysian-born people, with September 2009 Office for National Statistics estimates putting the figure at around 63,000.
Americas
According to answers provided to an open-ended question included in the 2010 United States Census, 26,179 people said that their ancestry or ethnic origin was Malaysian.
The Canada 2006 Census recorded 12 165 people self-identifying as Malaysian Canadian, but only 1 820 of these self-identified as exclusively Malaysian Canadian.