The Population Statistics and Fall in Fertility Rate in Singapore

Singapore, which is a small island city-state located in Southeast Asia, has become well known for its usage of social policies to manipulate the country’s fertility behaviour (Yap 643). The People’s Action Party (PAP) that came into power after Singapore Independence in 1965 has always been implementing new social and economic policies to change the demographics of Singapore ever since then. This was done to meet their objective of ensuring that Singapore achieves high economic growth each year. The demographic objective has changed from anti-natalist in the early 1970s to pro-natalist by the mid-1980s. The reason for this change in demographic aim was because of the ultra-low fertility rate amongst the Singaporeans which was below the replacement level of 2.1 for about a decade (Sim, “People's Action Party: Post-Independence Years.”). On 1 March 1987, the then First Deputy Prime Minister Mr Goh Chok Tong announced the replacement of two-child policy with the “three, or more if you can afford it” policy. Since then, the government have begun to introduce many incentives such as “baby bonuses” for second and third births and started paying the maternity leave for the third child born. Although marriages and family sizes are normally thought by many as private matters, the government has always felt that they play a significant role in ensuring that Singapore survives as people are its only source of resources. Thus, the PAP has been implementing the various social policies to manipulate the population structure.

This paper focuses on analyzing the reasons behind the fall in the fertility rate from the 1970s to early 2000s and the steps that the PAP government has taken to mitigate the problem. Although the Singapore government has implemented a series of pro-natalist policies after 1987, they were considered as largely ineffective in reversing the falling fertility trend. The essay will explore the change in demographic structure from the 1970s to the early 2000s, highlighting the various reasons that led to the plummeting fertility rates. These reasons include prioritizing personal career goals instead, rising singlehood rates, the rising cost of living and the anti-Natalist approach that the government took in the 1970s. Lastly, it will touch on the policies the government has taken to overcome the problem of falling fertility rates.

Before diving into the reasons behind the drop in fertility rate, we shall examine the population structure from 1970 to the early 2000s more thoroughly. The TFR dropped from about 3 children per woman from 1970 to 2.1 in 1976 which was the replacement level. This could be due to the introduction of anti-natalist policies from 1972 and the socio-economic development that might have changed the traditional mindset of Singaporeans to become more practical. The TFR was constantly below the replacement level ever since 1977. In 1986, the figures went to its a low of 1.4 children per woman. After the replacement of anti-natalist policies with pro-natalist policies in 1987, the TFR raised to a high of 1.96 children per woman in 1988. The figures remained at around 1.6 children per woman for about a decade until the late 1990s. From 1998 to 1999, the TFR dropped to 1.5, possibly due to the fact of the Asian Financial Crisis . It then raised to 1.6 in the year 2000 before hitting a new low of 1.41 in 2001 which could be affected by the recession caused by the dot com bubble burst crisis.

Since independence in 1965, the government has turned Singapore into a meritocracy society where anyone regardless of their race, gender or religion can be able to climb up the social ladder through their hard work. Thus, Singaporeans spend more time buried in their books and on their job so that they will be able to enjoy a comfortable life in the future (Straughan 7). Through this process, career aspirations have become more important than marriage and family formation for those entering adulthood (Straughan 7). There are even some parents who have urged their child to ensure that they have a proper job first before they think about getting married. In the past, women had fewer chances of getting an education compared to males and their primary role is to help out with the family’s farm and support the family by taking care of the children in the house. Now, with the aid of formal education and the state ideology of being a meritocracy society, both men and women are starting to chase after their own career aspirations as there are no more restrictions on how a woman can get an education. As rewards like annual bonuses are based on the performance of the individual, this encourages young employees to delay courtship and marriage so that they can accumulate more savings and become successful in the company (Straughan 9). It thus became more crucial for a young individual to keep up at work rather than to care about getting married. Therefore, causing a delay in the age of marriage. From the Census of Population 2000 Advance Data Release (Leow 66), it showed that the age at first marriage has increased for women from all different backgrounds. The increment in the age of first marriage for Chinese women was about 2.6 years while the Malay and Indian women showed a sharper increase of nearly 3.2 years between the 1971-80 marriage cohort and those who married thirty years later.