Last Friday a Straits Times article said Singapore’s total fertility rate plunged to a seven-year low of 1.16 last year. It is well below the replacement rate of 2.1.
Do you know that Singapore has the lowest fertility rate in the world?
According to the 2017 World Factbook published by the Central Intelligence Agency, the four countries with the lowest total fertility rate in the world are namely Singapore (0.83), Macau (0.95), Taiwan (1.13) and Hong Kong (1.19).
Our neighbour Malaysia obviously has much higher “productivity”. It occupies the 80th position in a list of 224 countries from high to low fertility.
6.9 million by 2030 is just a dream
There is another Straits Times article on the same day with the title “Total population 5.64m, with number of citizens up 1% to 3.47m”.
Singapore’s total population has increased 0.5 percent to reach 5.64 million in June this year. This is already a big improvement compared with 0.1 percent rise last year.
The number of citizen births in 2017 is 32,356, a 2.4 per cent drop from 2016.
The PR population has remained stable over the last five years, hovering between 0.52 and 0.53 million. Non-resident population has fallen from 1.67 million in 2016 to 1.64 million today.
Even if our population inches 0.5 percent for the next two years, Singapore will at most have 5.7 million people by June 2020.
As I have said in my blog post “Singapore’s latest demographics: what it means for housing”, unless the government starts importing 150,000 foreigners a year from tomorrow, we will be far from the Population White Paper’s original target to hit 6 million by 2020.
The population trends of low birth rate, stagnant growth and aging population are here to stay.
Yet many in the real estate industry are still indulging in relentless building and marketing of new homes in the Little Red Dot, as if there was a real need to house 6.9 million by 2030.
Our government’s approach on low birth rate
Whenever data shows Singapore has miserable birth rate, the local media will react by advocating the importance of marriage, children and family.
The last time was in July when The Straits Times featured a series of stories about how young parents enjoy family life with their big family.
Readers were brainwashed with articles titled “Supersized families: More couples in Singapore are not stopping at two”; More families having four or more children”; “Married for 18 years, with 10 children – and counting”; “Family joy from 7 kids, four of whom have special needs”; “When three kids are still not enough” …
We don’t have to run a census to know that large young families in Singapore are exceptional cases these days.
We don’t need a crystal ball to see that late marriages, more singles and less children per couple will be here to stay.
We don’t need a Sociology degree to understand that Singapore’s low fertility and aging population are the inevitable results of a developed country.
According to the World Factbook, out of the top twenty countries with high total fertility rate, almost all of them are in Africa.
But our ministers responsible for family planning don’t seem to see this. Our government and local media continue to deal with a modern problem with a dated approach.
Embracing traditional values is commendable. But we also need the wisdom to tell the differences between an ideal world and a practical world.
“Do not cling to anything that will eventually cease to exist. No matter how much time or energy or money you invest in it, once something is gone, it is gone forever.”
– Jim Rogers, A Gift To My Children
How effective are the goodies?
Have we done enough to encourage Singaporeans to have more babies? How effective are these measures?
Mothers who are citizens are entitled to 16 weeks’ of government-paid maternity leave while fathers are given two weeks’ of paternity leave.
In Taiwan and Hong Kong, mothers are only entitled to 8 and 10 weeks’ of maternity leave respectively. Fathers take just a 3-day paternity leave.
The Singapore government is also most generous in giving out baby bonuses and topping up Child Development Accounts.
Besides, Singapore is the best country in the world for children to grow up in. According to the study, Singapore performs well in all the eight judging criteria: under-five mortality rate, child stunting, out-of-school children and youth, child labour, child marriage, adolescent birth rate, population displaced by conflict, and child homicide rate.
Isn’t it ironic that our fertility rate is still the lowest in the world?
Our older generations saw marriage and raising children a stage of life and a personal responsibility. They never received any incentive from the government or assistance from their workplace.
If the government believes that the more the goodies, the more motivated the people to have babies, it is fighting a losing battle.
Because no amount of bonus can lessen the pain of a mother during childbirth. No amount of top-up can compensate the time and efforts of a parent to raise a child.
We want to have our cake and eat it too
Singapore strives to be number one in everything. We aspire to be the hub of all major industries and future technologies.
So we train and require our children, workers, employees and SMEs to be competitive, efficient and productive. Our country is highly focused on results and achievements. Our society measures success according to wealth and social status.
Yet when it comes to fertility, we ask our young generation to take it easy on their work, spend time dating, start a family early and go for more children.
Can’t anyone see that we are asking the same small group of citizens to commit to two self-conflicting and equally time-consuming activities simultaneously in a short time span?
Every year when the population brief shows a falling birth rate and lower population growth, news articles will conveniently put the blame on late marriages and singles.
The Straits Times article said the biggest proportion of women staying single is in the prime childbearing years of 25 to 29.
Is this “prime childbearing years” relevant to Singapore?
I remember years ago my confinement lady told me that, in her twenty years’ of confinement assignments in Singapore, she never had any client under the age of 30, except one who had a shotgun marriage in her early twenties.
When starting a family becomes a matter of choice
If you are single, you only have one problem: Being asked why you are single and you may be lonely.
If you are married, you will still be lonely. The difference is you have no time to deal with your loneliness.
From the moment you say yes, you are busy with wedding, house hunting, renovation, mortgage, having babies, childcare, tuitions, PSLE …
If you are a woman, you are given additional responsibilities of conceiving, pregnancy, delivery, confinement, breastfeeding, raising children, in-laws, house chores, domestic helpers, another pregnancy – while trying to balance your life as a working mother.
You learn to excel in every responsibility as an employee, a wife, a mother, a daughter and a daughter-in-law. For all the time, efforts, sweat, tears, blood, compromise and sacrifice over two decades, you can almost build a business empire.
Other women are also doing the same. You are doing your “national service” as a woman in this “infertile” land.
Your job has no promotion, no CPF, no annual leave, no reimbursement, no fringe benefit, no package, no bonus, no dividend, no pay, no nothing. You are required to work 24×7 with no day off. Yet you won’t be allowed to quit, resign or change job.
The fact is: You must really love this job to apply for it and carry on till the very end.
The reality is: The new generation knows that they have the choice to decide whether and when they marry and have babies. This is unlike last time when people think they should do it because everybody else is doing it.
If more people choose not to have babies, do you still want to have children?
If the majority are singles, do you still want to get married?
If most people rent, do you still buy?
Even if some choose to be single or childless, there will always be others who go for it.
If Singapore has chosen the path of elitism, why can’t we accept the resulting population trend and learn to live with it?
Just as an economist from the Singapore University of Social Sciences said,
“If you have zero or negative population growth, we would have to radically restructure the way we deal with major policies. For example, some things we take for granted, like new Housing Board flats, may no longer be built because there is not enough people to live in them.”
It’s time we stopped dreaming about a 6.9 million population and planned our housing for a stagnant and aging population.
Cannot quite relate how a full article on Low birth rate and government policies to encourage children has got anything to do with property (or add any points in relation to property) other than what was already well covered in your earlier blog post “Singapore’s latest demographics: what it means for housing”,
The earlier blog post is straight forward. This one needs to read between the lines to see what I am really talking about.
Thank you for writing this. I am raising both hands and feet to show that I totally agree with what you wrote.
Thank you. When I wrote this post, I knew only people who have gone through the same will understand what I am writing about.
Haha I believe it is possible for a woman to have a highly successful career and also manage a loving family at home. These are usually seen in the higher SES families where they can outsource help with their financial abilities.
Agree with you that a successful career and a loving family are not mutually exclusive. Some lucky ones have both. We should be grateful to have either one because many have none.
Agree with your views and analysis. Housing policies remain outdated hence allowing over-supply.
Finally someone know what I really want to say in this blog post 🙂 Thanks Shirley!
P.S. To express myself more clearly, I just added one more line in the following paragraph:
If more people choose not to have babies, do you still want to have children?
If the majority are singles, do you still want to get married?
If most people rent, do you still buy?“
My humble opinion on “If most people rent, do you still buy?” should be revised to “If most people are home owners, do you still buy to let?”
I like your question. Last time we bought private properties to lease to foreigners. But if the number of foreigners are on the decline, and the government is not opening the gate for new corners, how sustainable is the private residential rental market with a limited pool of tenants?
Thank you for bringing discussion points more in line with property. (Property soul)…saw some light.
The first couple of comments seem to be from readers interpreting this article to be about women, mothers, family and their careers.
It is fine. All comments are welcome. It is just normal different people see different things. And I love to hear what it is too.
Maybe you should start ‘motherlysoul’ or ‘womanlysoul’ to stimulate discussion on Mother, women and their career.
Quite true. Most readers of a property blog would be looking out for pointers and discussion points in relation to property.
The problem is a bit bigger for population growth than just fertility.
Population and employment drives demand for property ownership and rental. I agree an oversupply will simply get worse. Belief and holding power is a strong counter weight to the oversupply reality but this cant last forever.
Yahoo News Excerpt:
“A recent survey by the Institute of Policy Studies found that nearly 20% of young Singaporeans (aged between 19 and 30 years) want to emigrate, while nearly a third of that group would consider doing so within five years.”
I speak to the Uncles driving the taxi, they talk about expatriating on retirement because its the only way to get the CPF back and that Singapore is too expensive for retirement.
Add in the fact that its getting tougher to immigrate to Singapore. Newer regulations make it harder for temporary or permanent immigration. The regulations don’t seem to be soothing the Netziens.
Negative sentiments expressed by vocal Netziens. I read comments from Netziens from local news outlets. It really felt like an attack on the concept of 6.9 by 2030 and to my fellow immigrants.
Commentary: “Expats, foreign talent and immigration make Singapore economically better off” by Chanel New Asia is an example but the overwhelmingly negative comments from Netziens has since been removed.
I feel gratitude to the women who gave us life and suffered hardship to launch us into the world. They are underappreciated by society. This is a life’s work more respectable than any other, no fancy CEO or inventor can measure up to these unsung heroes.
Thanks for your comments. Remind me of the famous line in Qian Zhongshi’s (钱锺書) novel Fortress Besieged (圍城): – People outside the fortress want to come in. People inside the fortress want to go out (城外的人想進来，城內的人想出去).
Thanks for your words of gratitude for mothers. Only people who have gone through it understand the joy and hardship. There is no other experience in life that is even close to this.
Thank you for writing this article. And I must agree with you that the supply will be over flowing the demand. Too many GLS, developer projects from en-blocs, BTOs and resales (HDB & private) contributed to the supply.
Yes, let’s wait and see what the market will look like when the 47,000 new units in the supply pipelines are ready for TOP in the next few years.
So if developers realize this and reduce supply, what will happen to the prices?
It is naive to think that competitors will collaborate with each other to moderate supply. Just like a spokesperson from a property agency said that there won’t be oversupply in the market as long as developers launch new projects in intervals and pace out their unsold stocks.
The strategy of any developer is the same: Bid high, sell early and run fast. All developers are under the timeline of 5 years to clear all the units after planning approval. The earlier they launch the project, the more first-time buyers they can secure. Who cares whether their competitors will be stuck with unsold stock?
1. Government policy might change after upcoming election in 2021. No one knows
2. Interest rate are no longer as cheap as before and going higher. But doubt we see massive correction unless interest rate see 5% which I doubt when the US Fed say Long term interest rate is 3%
3. Singapore still have very Low unemployment, even in a crisis like 2008, we emerged relative quickly out of the bad shape
4. Yes, agree upside might be limited but not sure what downside as well. Do not believe we have a 50% correction coming up. 20% is always possible
Thanks for your viewpoints. I am not a fortune teller so I can’t predict things like changes in government policies, future interest rates, percentage of price correction, etc. As an investor, I can only ensure that I am well-prepared for whatever that may come to minimize any potential loss of wealth.
Reading real facts and figures & with proper analysis of existing are key data rather than reading overly optimistic real estate news .
1. Housing loan has been on the rise…current at 2.38% for 3 year fixed. Sibor rate has been going up from slight over 1% to 1.66%.
2. With the recent Enbloc frenzy, Developers are taking 5 year loan facility from banks. With dampening sales coupled by the increase in the cost of borrowing & strict holding period developers are feeling the strain now.
3. Developer stocks being hammered lately to a tune of 25- more than 30% drop from 5 Jul. Bank stock aren’t spared as well with a 15%-20% drop from peak. SIMSCi is down 18% from Peak.
4. Hosing has already shot up more than 35% from 2009 to 2012. 2013 & 2016 saw only minor correction due to cheap cost of borrowing. However dynamics has change now.
5. Potential Increase in housing supply.
Nuff said…..
Thank you for your valuable input. Very good summary of all the relevant data.
Therefore, property appealing to singles and elderly would be a better Long-term investment?
Sigh. Unfortunately, as pointed out by Mr Ku Swee Yong, the census shows that the growing number of singles are coming from the widowers in our aging population. Getting a hip shoebox condo unit is at the bottom of they shopping list.
Singapore is very different from western countries. We don’t see many singles moving out to buy or rent a place on their own. Most prefer to live with their parents. Thanks to the 91.5% home ownership rate and spacious pubic housing.