Straits Times Editorial 2023-07-06 --- Tragedy of the missing Singaporeans

Straits Times Editorial 2023-07-06

Tragedy of the missing Singaporeans

https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/st-editorial/tragedy-of-the-missing-singaporeans

2023-07-06

Combine an ageing population with low birth rates, and you have the perfect recipe for the demographic decline of Singapore. This warning is not new, but it keeps getting reinforced by dismal official figures. Singapore’s birth rate hit a record low in 2022, a year when the country also witnessed the highest number of deaths annually since 1960. There was a 7.9 per cent drop in the number of live births, from 38,672 in 2021 to 35,605 in 2022. There were 26,891 deaths in 2022, a 10.7 per cent increase compared with the 24,292 recorded in 2021. This represented the highest number of total yearly deaths since 1960.

Notwithstanding the number of deaths, sad though they are, the overall picture provided by the National Population and Talent Division reveals a population that is ageing rapidly because of low fertility rates and longer life expectancy. Large cohorts of baby boomers have begun entering the post-65 age range. The proportion of citizens aged 65 and above increased from 11.1 per cent in 2012 to 18.4 per cent in 2022. By 2030, around one in four citizens would be aged 65 and above.

The phenomenon of Singaporeans living longer is to be welcomed unequivocally, of course. It attests to higher levels of nutrition, better sanitary conditions and, crucially, vastly improved healthcare than previous generations had access to. In a word, the quality of life in this country has improved so much that longevity has become the national norm. Singaporeans could and should take pride in their society having come so far so soon. What is heart-rending is the phenomenon of declining birth rates, or what could be called the tragedy of missing Singaporeans – the citizen births whose absence spells demographic contraction followed by decline. These are the Singaporeans who are missing from the empty baby cribs in the maternity wards of hospitals, the anxious queues on the first day of school, the fresh university graduates throwing their hats to the skies, the parents kissing the foreheads of their newborns and, yes, the elderly who will not get to live in an ageing society because they would not be born in the first place.

Immigration is only a partial answer to the problem because it involves problems with integrating foreigners into Singapore society – hence the need for the pronatalist policies that have been introduced over the years to help Singaporeans contend with the cost of living and other material reasons for postponing having families or for deciding to go child-free. There are no easy answers, but one thing is clear. If citizens want a Singaporean Singapore, an intergenerational core of native Singaporeans, the empty cribs in hospitals provide the answer.