Birth Rate is up, but not enough?

Source: The Straits Times

May 6, 2008
Birth rate up, but foreigners still needed to build core of citizens

By Zakir Hussain

SINGAPORE's birth rate crept up slightly to 1.29 last year, up from 1.26 the year before, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revealed on Tuesday.

The birth rate hit a record low of 1.24 in 2004.

'I just looked at the numbers. They were 1.24. We made a big effort, we came to 1.26. And last year, we have reached the fabulous number of 1.29,' he said.

I don't think that is "fabulous" but rather to show the ineffectiveness of government population policy in increasing of the birth rate

Singapore can try to do better, but the birth rate will never go back up to the replacement level of 2.1 because of the way society has changed, he added.

'The social trends have gone too far this way, and it's the behaviour in all of the developed countries,' he said at a dialogue organised by Thomson Reuters on Tuesday.

Newsweek correspondent Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop had asked how the Government planned to integrate an anticipated large inflow of foreigners.

Mr Lee replied that the Government believed Singapore had to be open to foreigners because it needed to draw on a range of talent and expertise, just like the thriving financial centres of New York and London.

That is a new game now!