Health and Population
Many developed countries are experiencing the problem of declining birth rates, and Singapore is no exception. Our highly successful birth control campaigns in the 1980s have led to a decline in birth rate, and coupled with the increasing career ambitious of a highly educated female population, the number of new borns per year has fallen below the natural replacement level of 2.1 since. It can be seen that population control policies have far and wide effects on the demographics of a nation, as evident in the case of Singapore, with a rapidly ageing population; and China, with an issue of imbalance gender proportion. Policies that were set by the state will result in long-term implications on the nation, and it is imperative that the effects (both long term and short) of different measures and policies be analyzed thoroughly before the state implements them.
How the states perceive the problems greatly affects the kinds of solutions that they prescribe in controlling the population growth rates. While most states may have a largely economic view of the population growth rate, using it as a gauge of the size of the labour market in the future, others may adopt different perspectives when understanding population issues, such as in considering ethnic balances, or the standard of living for families in different socio-economic classes. If the objective was plainly to increase or decrease the overall population growth rate, a standard measure can be implemented to encourage or discourage births. However, if there are more specific objectives to be attained, measures will have to be tailored to suit the specific needs of the different groups of people involved, for them to be effective.
The relationship that the state shares with its people also affects the types of approaches that will be adopted in influencing population growth. In countries where states are of strong authority, policies with stated objectives can be imposed on the people, such as in the case of China’s one-child policy. In other countries, more indirect measures such as tax rebates, monetary incentives, and maternity leave will have to be used as a more subtle approach in encouraging births.
It is not just how the state perceives the problem, but also how it understands the way its people perceive the problem and the constraints that they have, that determines the efficacy of the solutions prescribed. While the state is solving a problem for a nation at large, it is far more important to focus on what the individuals that make up the nation feel and think about the problem, in order to devise suitable and effective solutions. If the state becomes too focused on the population problem itself (e.g. the declining birth rates), it will overlook the problems faced by its people (e.g. lack of financial resources, time etc). The latter are in fact the root causes, or actual problems, while the former is but a symptom of the greater problem.
In addressing the issue of declining birth rates in Singapore, my personal take is that the government ought to recognise that beyond the carrots that they are dangling out to entice couples to pro-create, deeper understanding into our social structure is needed. What they have created over the past many years, is a no doubt economically-sound and progressive society, but at the expense of cultivating a healthy social or familial culture. A pro-family culture has to be built up over time, and its development is not something that we can simply quantify into performance measures and targets. When the emphasis shifts from producing a sizeable workforce to growing family bonds and ties, maybe then, in the years to come, we might just hear more baby cries at night.
