Sunday February 5, 2012

LKY asks Singaporeans to populate

Former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew sounded a note of caution about Singapore’s diminishing population, saying it would slow down the economy.

Calling the task of increasing the country’s population its “biggest challenge”, he said that when he became prime minister in 1959, more than 62,000 babies were born in that year, from a population half Singapore’s current size.

The population now stands at 5.18 million, with citizens forming 3.26 million. But last year, only about 36,000 babies were born.

“I hope the Year of the Dragon, which Chinese believe brings good luck and fortune, will see more babies born,” he said. “However, the trend is downwards. We will have to depend on immigrants to make up our numbers.”

Speaking at a Chinese New Year dinner for his Tanjong Pagar GRC at Queenstown Primary School, Lee said that to have babies is “a personal matter’’.

“But collectively for the nation, it has considerable consequences.”

The total fertility rate of the population was 1.2 last year, far below the replacement rate of 2.1.

The education of Singaporean women and their ability to earn as much as the men have altered the social behaviour of both sexes.

“It has led to late marriages. Women can wait to choose husbands who they feel are better than them, earning more and can help raise the family together.”

Since getting pregnant means losing out at work, he said many women defer marriage or worse, stay single.

Lee noted that 44.2% of men and 31% of women between the ages of 30 and 34 are single.

Pointing to the stagnation of the Japanese economy as a result of their hostility to immigrants, he said such a stance is a choice that “we in Singapore cannot afford to make”.

“The Japanese have large reserves and can withstand slow growth for a long time,” he said.

“Like it or not, unless we have more babies, we need to accept immigrants.” — The Straits Times / Asia News Network