Ethos Issue 1, October 2006
Population and Policy
Interview with Joseph Chamie
As the former United Nations Chief Demographer,
Dr Joseph Chamie is one of the world’s leading authorities
on population change and movement. Speaking to Ethos, he outlined
the implications of global demographic trends for public policy
in Singapore and elsewhere.
To what extent can government policy
effectively influence long-term population trends?
When it comes to population and government policy, it is very
important to distinguish between the three components of population
change: fertility, mortality and migration.
Government policy can be very effective
in reducing mortality, for example, by immunising people against
disease and so on. It can also change migratory patterns,
with programmes, infrastructure and incentives. Laws —
for instance, the legal age to drink, drive, vote or retire
and receive social security — can also affect age structure
and behaviour.
Fertility is a more difficult matter. In
most societies, it is generally up to the couple to decide
on the number and spacing of their children, based on their
own calculation of the benefits and the costs. When fertility
is high, governments can facilitate the reduction in fertility
that normally comes about with urbanisation, lower mortality
and increased education, with incentives and investments in
schools, jobs and so on. But when fertility declines to very
low levels, what can governments do?
Incentives to bring down fertility
have worked well in the past. But it is evidently much more
difficult to bring up fertility rates. Can Singapore, with
one of the lowest Total Fertility Rates in the world at 1.24,
hope to improve its situation?
Very low fertility will be a big preoccupation for societies
in the 21st century: is this a temporal phenomenon that will
correct itself or is it something that is going to be the
case for all countries in the coming decades?
The ideal of countries, of course, is to
have a transition to replacement levels. We can look at countries
by their Total Fertility Rate (TFR) – the ones above
1.5 and the ones below. Countries that have 1.8 or 1.9 children
per couple, such as France and the UK, may be able to maintain
their population size by trying to raise it slightly or bringing
in migrants.
There are also many countries with a TFR
below 1.5: Japan, Russia, Korea, Italy, Spain, Greece, Ukraine,
Georgia, Lithuania and Singapore. The research I have been
doing indicates that government policy may have some modest
impact. However, it is very unlikely that countries with fertility
rates below 1.5 will get back to replacement level any time
soon. The Swedish have been able to increase the fertility
rate for a cross section of the population at a certain point
in time, but then it has come back down again. So to get the
current 1.24 up to perhaps 1.8 for Singapore will be a major
challenge.
In the coming years, however, Singapore’s
TFR may stay at 1.2 to 1.24, but then it is likely to go up
to perhaps to 1.5 or 1.6. The mean age of childbearing has
been rising, but this rise will cease, resulting in 10% to
20% increase in the fertility rate. Public encouragement,
media and benefits may also have some small effect. There
are also people who are having difficulty conceiving, who
may be helped by new means. All these factors could increase
fertility.
The French, with a fertility rate at 1.9,
may be a useful example to consider. They have been able to
create a culture where women and men believe that they can
have a family and children and still work — so they
have preschool and after school assistance and so on. But
in many countries, couples are finding it hard to raise a
family with two or three children when both husband and wife
are working outside the home.
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