Low birth rate

An edited version of this letter was published in Straits Times Online on 29 June 2010

A Straits Times editorial entitled "A case of try and try again" (28 June 2010) reported on the many failed attempts to arrest the declining birth rate in Singapore. The current average of 1.22 children per woman of child bearing age is far below the replacement level of 2.07, and must place our birth rate as among the lowest in the world.

This worrying fact was noted by the Government almost 25 years ago and several rounds of incentives have been introduced, with great publicity and fanfare, but all of them have failed miserably. We refused to recognise the real reasons for the failure and instead said that this is a trend faced by other countries. If this is the case, why should Singapore fare worst than others?

Singapore's low birth rate is the outcome of our social and economic policies of the past decades, which has resulted in high cost of living, low security of employment, low wages, wide disparity of income, high cost of housing, a stressed education system and so on.

The measures to increase the population through immigration will have their negative impacts. Worse, it will not solve the underlying problems, as the immigrants will face the same difficulties as the local born citizens, and they have more opportunity (and less deterrence) to move to other countries at a convenient time in the future.

I hope that we will be prepared to face reality, address the underlying issues, and be prepared to try new measures that were not tried before in Singapore (but have proven successful in other countries).

Tan Kin Lian