Ethos Issue 7, Jan 2010
Phases of Singapore’s Demographic
Development Post-World War II
Koh Eng Chuan
Moving towards comprehensive,
accessible and quality childcare for all will take time and resources, and will
require a full review of current pro-natalist
incentives and initiatives. It is
worth considering how else the state
can help working parents to reduce the
burden of childrearing, given that ideal
family size is in fact much higher than
total fertility rate.17
Immigration
In the third phase of demographic
development, both permanent and
temporary migration had been utilised
to supplement the local population and
workforce in the form of "replacement
migration".18 This strategy will continue
into the fourth phase, even if the inflow
of foreign workers and immigrants is
expected to be moderated.
Integration of migrants will be a
key area of focus in the coming years,19
particularly if Singapore
will have to depend more
and more on migrants for
population growth with
natural increase declining.
While it has been argued
before that Singapore was
a migrant society to begin
with, it should be noted
that there were communal
goals among the diverse
population at the time of
Independence, and some
sense of shared identity
today after 44 years as a nation. This
is an important difference from the
migrants of today, who may be entering
society without the same sense of
shared communal values.20 Do they
integrate and adapt; do they preserve
their own immigrant identity and work
within their enclaves; do they change
the current shared values; do they
enrich Singapore as a cultural melting
pot—these are issues which need to be
further reviewed.
Social and Age Structural Shift
The combined effect of low fertility and
sustained migration will also mean
that Singapore will undergo a huge
age structure shift in the population.
While this has been in the background
for the third phase of demographic
development, pronounced changes would only come after the post-war baby
boomers reach age 65 years (Figure 2).
The intake of permanent migrants in
working ages from 1990 (third phase
of demographic development) onwards
will also start to reach age 65 from about
year 2030, and will further raise the
numbers of elderly in the population.
With fertility below 1.3 and the new
birth cohorts in the current 35,000 to
40,000 in the foreseeable future, the age
structure imbalance will be accentuated.
Singapore’s dependency ratio will rise
quickly in the near future, with the old
dependency ratio overtaking the young
dependency ratio in the future.
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