Population Policies and Programmes in Singapore

App C. Who Is Having Too Few Babies?

APPENDIX C WHO IS HAVING TOO FEW BABIES? by Saw Swee-Hock (Article published in Sunday Times on 6 July 1986) In an earlier article (“When couples have fewer than two”, The Sunday Times, June 15) I discussed the impact of fertility trends in Singapore on the future size of our population. Singapore women, as a whole, have been having too few babies to keep our population from declining in the future. But there are differences in birth patterns among women from the different ethnic and educational groups. For instance, while Malay and Indian women have been having children at a rate of about two per family (the population replacement rate), Chinese women, on average, have been having fewer and fewer. I will consider the implications of this trend later in the article. First, in order to understand better the population problem that faces Singapore, we need to look at some fertility figures. Those who watch population trends find a number called the GRR (gross reproduction rate) to be a particularly useful measure of fertility. It is the average number of daughters a woman will produce during her child-bearing years — provided that she lives through the entire period. Of course, not all women live until the end of their child-bearing period. So the actual average number of daughters born to women in the population can be calculated from the GRR by taking into account the death rate of women in this age group. 255 16 PP&P Appendix 16/5/05, 3:14 PM 255 The resulting figure is the net reproduction rate (NRR). If the NRR is exactly 1 (commonly referred to as the two-child family level, since each woman has one son and one daughter on the average), we can expect the population to replace itself in the future. If it is less than 1, too few daughters are being born for the population to replace itself. If it is more than 1, the size of the population will grow, since there will be more daughters than mothers. When the NRR is exactly 1 in Singapore, the GRR will be about 1.025. This is the replacement fertility level. Women in Singapore have been having fewer and fewer children since 1958. This decline continued into the early 1970s. In 1970, the average woman had 1.505 daughters over her lifetime. In 1975, when the fertility rate first dropped below the replacement level of 1.025, the average woman had 1.006 daughters. Now, if Singapore is to attain the goal of stabilizing its population in the future, two conditions have to be met. The first is that fertility must drop to replacement level. This it did in 1975. But the second condition for a stationary population is that fertility needs to remain close to replacement level indefinitely. This condition has not been met, as fertility has continued to decline after 1975. It fell from 1.006 in 1975 to the low of 0.766 in 1983, after which it went up slightly to 0.779 in 1985. We can certainly expect fertility to remain below replacement level in 1986 and over the next few years. Since 1975, our women have been producing fewer children than necessary to keep the population from declining in the future. For each year since 1975, we can calculate the number of additional births that would have been required to ensure a complete renewal of our population. First we estimate the number of births that would have occurred each year if replacement fertility (one daughter per woman) had prevailed. Then, we compare the estimate with the actual number of births for each year. The difference between the figures for any particular year gives an idea of the extent to which our women have not been producing enough children to ensure that the population will replace itself. 256 POPULATION POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES IN SINGAPORE 16 PP&P Appendix 16/5/05, 3:14 PM 256 In 1974, there were 43,268 births as compared with the 39,074 births required for replacement. This gives a surplus of 4,194 births. Before 1974, the surpluses were even greater. In 1975, when fertility dropped below replacement level, the actual number of births was 39,948, a shortfall of 755 below the 40,703 births required for replacement. In that year, we were therefore 1.9 per cent short of the number of births needed to ensure...