W(h)ither State Interest in Intimacy?: Singapore through a Comparative Lens

National governments have long taken widely varying positions on population policy. Singapore, for example, has made great efforts to manage individual reproductive decisions, first to lower fertility rates and then to increase them. Comparisons between Singapore’s population policies and those of two neighbouring countries, Thailand and Indonesia, reveal one case in which fertility fell dramatically despite a less intrusive policy environment, and another in which fertility also fell, but not as dramatically, despite a similarly aggressive approach to Singapore’s. Of the three, Singapore’s population policy continues to be the most tenacious; it continues to be framed in terms of “national development” and economic well-being.