History suggests Singapore will enjoy a welcome baby boom in this Year
of the Dragon, the most auspicious for births in the Chinese zodiac.
But after 25 years of
state-sponsored matchmaking and fertility-boosting campaigns, the government's
attempts to arrest a sliding birth rate are falling flat, with potentially
profound consequences for the wealthy Asian city-state.
The calls to conception are now
urgent and constant to citizens whose fertility ranks last among 222 nations in
the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook.
Faced with dismal statistics like
that, the government has begun a review of population and immigration policy
and says it plans new measures to encourage births by the time it publishes the
results of its consultation early next year.
The message to have more babies
is all the more pressing as resentment builds over an influx of foreigners who
now make up more than a third of the population of 5.2 million, a factor that
is eroding support for the long-ruling People's Action Party.
"We have a problem. The
long-term trend is down but we cannot give up," Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
said in a speech on Sunday about the nation's future. "We need to create
the right environment, the right social environment, the right ethos so that
Singaporeans want to settle down and have kids."
Social and economic engineering
is nothing new in Singapore, where a firm government hand helped to steer a
small island with no natural resources into one of the world's most affluent
countries in a little over a generation.
But the relentless drop in the
birth rate reveals the limits of that influence in what has been described as a
"nanny state".
For a global trade and financial
centre like Singapore, its extremely low fertility rate has implications for
economic growth, tax revenues, healthcare costs and immigration policy as the
number of elderly people looks set to triple by 2030.
There are now 6.3 Singaporeans of
working age for every senior citizen. By 2030, the ratio will be closer to 2:1.
At current levels, the birth rate
implies that the local population will fall by half within a generation, said
Sanjeev Sanyal, a Singapore-based global strategist at Deutsche Bank.
"Even to attract a pipeline
of good quality foreign talent, you need socio-political continuity and
stability that can only be provided by a robust anchor population," he
said.
WORK/LIFE BALANCE
If there were any doubts about
the government's blatant message, the mint maker Mentos put out an
advertisement urging married Singaporeans to do their civic duty on the evening
of the Aug. 9 National Day festivities.
"I'm talking about making a
baby, baby," went the video's rapped lyrics, accompanied by hip-thrusting
animated hearts. "It's National Night, let's make Singapore's birthrate
spike."
Not long ago, Singapore had the
opposite problem.
From the mid-1960s, with post-war
baby boomers hitting child-bearing age, the fears were that a population surge
would threaten the development of the newly independent nation.
With the slogan "Stop at
two", the government penalised big families, legalised abortion and
rewarded sterilisation. It was so effective that, by 1987, the policy was
reversed and the slogan became "Have three or more if you can afford
it".
Conspiring against more births
are powerful contraceptives in the form of intense career pressure, long work
hours, small apartments, waiting lists for nursery care and soaring prices.
"Work/life balance is what
everybody's after," said Evonne, a marketing professional in her 30s,
adding she and her husband plan to have one child. "If you don't want
kids, no matter what the government throws at you, I don't think you really
care."
The 2010 census showed
Singaporeans are marrying later than a decade earlier. In the age group 30-34,
a key time for career, 43 percent of men and 31 percent of women were not
married.
For women in their 40s who were
or had been married, those with only one child rose to 19 percent from 15
percent.
The issue is acute for the ethnic
Chinese who make up 74 percent of Singapore's citizens and permanent residents,
a majority that has ebbed from nearly 78 percent in 1990. Statistics show
ethnic Chinese are having fewer babies than the Malay and Indian communities
and are more likely to be single.
Officials have sought to balance
the call for more children with a message that the country must remain open to
immigration to provide the labour and expertise needed for future growth.
Not all are convinced, as many
Internet posts show.
Gilbert Goh, who runs a support
group, Transitioning, for the unemployed, decried "relentless messages
sent out by the government to accept foreigners" because of the low birth
rate.
"Besides seemingly solving
the whole birth rate issue here for our government, foreigners also are brought
in to solve a bigger issue for employers -- cheap hard-working labour," he
wrote on his website.
Simmering anger over immigration
is widely believed to have contributed to the People's Action Party's
unexpected loss of seats in last year's parliamentary elections.
SINGAPORE "WILL FOLD
UP"
Saying it recognises concerns
about jobs, living standards and social cohesion, the government has put
tighter controls on the number of foreigners it lets in, particularly
lower-skilled and lower-wage workers.
In July, it put out a paper for
public input on ways to encourage Singaporeans to marry and have families as
part of its review of population and immigration policy.
The paper -- "Our Population
Our Future" -- set out a troubling scenario for an ageing society if birth
trends persist, including a less vibrant economy, an exodus of major companies
and a shrinking number of workers and consumers.
To encourage parenthood, the
government gives out baby bonuses of up to S$4,000 ($3,200) for each of the
first two children, rising to S$6,000 for the third and fourth. It also matches
deposits made into a Child Development Account.
The Social Development Network,
part of a government agency, offers free romantic advice by its "Dr
Love" and oversees the activities of private dating agencies.
To reverse the trend, Lee said on
Sunday, changes in social and workplace attitudes are needed, along with more
support for families with housing and affordable, accessible childcare.
If women were having at least two
children, that would mean a rise in the population. But at a fertility rate of
0.78, according to the CIA, the number of Singaporeans is waning.
The government has different data
showing women, on average, giving birth to 1.2 babies in a lifetime -- down
from 1.87 in 1990 and 1.42 in 2001 and far below the replacement rate.
The city-state is not alone. Hong
Kong, Taiwan and South Korea also have very low fertility rates and many of the
same cost, space and career pressures.
Among Southeast Asian neighbours,
Thailand's fertility rate of 1.66 is below replacement but the populations are
growing in Indonesia (2.23), Malaysia (2.64) and the Philippines (3.15).
Lee Kuan Yew, the country's
founding leader and father of the current prime minister, warned in August that
Singapore "will fold up" unless it reverses the drop in the birth
rate.
"Do we want to replace
ourselves or do we want to shrink and get older and be replaced by migrants and
work permit holders?" said Lee, who launched the "Stop at two"
campaign in 1966.
Some hope for a zodiac-linked
baby boom that is borne out by government figures. Births rose in previous
Dragon years in 1976, 1988 and 2000, but those were only minor spikes in a
steady decline in Singapore's fertility rate from 3.07 in 1970.
The government is promising new
measures to encourage births and help families but unless career and cost
pressures change dramatically, there may be little effect.
"Can Singaporeans be
persuaded to have more children?" was the survey question during a recent
television panel discussion on the birth rate. Channel News Asia's telephone
poll may not have been completely scientific, but the answer was clear -- a
resounding 74 percent of respondents said "no".
John O'Callaghan
Reuters
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