Encouraging Higher Birth Rates in Singapore

Er Dr Lee Bee Wah asked the Prime Minister in light of the possibility that Singapore's population will shrink from 2025 if we do not have new citizens (a) whether there is any lesson that can be learnt from the European and Norwegian countries in the way they manage their population growth; and (b) whether other measures are looked at to encourage higher birth rates.

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar asked the Prime Minister if there are plans to enhance the Baby Bonus scheme or other plans to help improve the total fertility rate of Singaporeans.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Teo Chee Hean) (for the Prime Minister): Sir, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 13 and 14 together?

Mr Speaker: Yes, please.

Mr Teo Chee Hean: Sir, many European countries are addressing their population challenges by pursuing a mix of pro-parenthood and immigration policies. Nordic countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Norway have relatively high Total Fertility Rates (TFR) of between 1.88 and 1.98. These countries have a broad array of pro-parenthood measures such as good childcare systems, generous leave provisions and financial support for child raising costs. We have been studying their policies in the course of developing ours.

Pro-parenthood measures may vary across countries due to differing cultural and socio-economic conditions. The Nordic countries have higher Government spending on pro-parenthood measures, but they also have significantly higher tax rates. The personal income tax rates in the Nordic countries range from 29% to 63%, and most people pay income tax there, compared to Singapore's personal income tax rates which range from 3.5% to 20%. In fact, most Singaporeans do not pay income tax because the income level at which our income tax kicks in is quite high.

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The total fertility rates vary between different countries. I mentioned that in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, the range is between 1.88 and 1.98. Among other European countries, such as Germany and Italy, they vary between 1.39 and 1.41. Germany is 1.39, Italy is 1.41. The US has a TFR of 1.93. So, it is not so easy to relate directly the policies or the amount of expenditure to the TFR because there are many other factors at work.

There is one observation, though, in the Nordic countries which do have a higher TFR of 1.88 to 1.98. A high proportion of births are to women who are not married to the father of the child. This is one main difference between their TFR and those of other countries at similar levels of development. Based on OECD reports, out-of-wedlock births made up about half of all births in Sweden, Denmark and Norway in 2010. In contrast, Asian societies, including Singapore, continue to value having children within the context of marriage. Creating a supportive environment for Singaporeans to form families and raise children remains a key Government priority.

Over the years, we have significantly enhanced our Marriage and Parenthood package, and currently set aside $1.6 billion per year for a broad range of measures. These include:

(a) support for singles to find their life partner;

(b) Baby Bonus cash gift and co-savings to help parents defray the costs of child-raising;

(c) maternity and child care leave provisions to help parents balance work and family life; as well as,

(d) measures to improve the quality, affordability and accessibility of childcare options.

Since 2001, the parents of around 350,000 children have benefited from these measures.

We have also invested heavily in areas such as education, healthcare and security, in order to make Singapore a good place for families. There are, of course, housing subsidies as well for first-time homeowners to encourage them to set up their own home, and these are not included in the $1.6 billion that I mentioned earlier for the Marriage and Parenthood package.

We are reviewing policies and measures to support marriage and parenthood, taking into account public feedback and the experiences of other countries. Over the next few months, we will be engaging various stakeholders to discuss new ideas as well as enhancements to existing measures. We welcome views and suggestions from the public on how we can improve Singapore's birth rate. I certainly encourage Er Dr Lee and Dr Intan to share their views with us.

However, we need to recognise that relying on Government measures alone would not raise Singapore's birth rate, as getting married and having children are very personal decisions that reflect broader social values and attitudes. To support and encourage Singaporeans, we will need to strengthen Singapore's pro-family environment, where employers, family members and society at large all have a part to play.

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Er Dr Lee Bee Wah (Nee Soon): Thank you, Sir. I would like to thank the Deputy Prime Minister for the comprehensive answer. Definitely we are not encouraging more births out of wedlock. A good childcare system is very important. I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether there would be more support given for childcare centres because there is a lot of feedback that there are insufficient childcare centres, and also the fees have gone up tremendously over the last few months.

Mr Teo Chee Hean: Yes, certainly. I think Er Dr Lee is quite correct, childcare is one of those issues which have consistently been identified by young parents as an issue, which if we could make more accessible, more affordable, would be helpful to them. There are already currently childcare subsidies. The Baby Bonus is there and it can be used for that. The Child Development Account is also used by many of the parents to help to defray the cost of childcare. Sir, in fact, childcare is one of the main ways in which the Child Development Account is used today. But we are looking at this issue again to see whether there are areas that we can improve on.

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar: Sir, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for the extensive reply. Will the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) consider extending paid maternity leave, or better still, having paid parental leave, for both mothers and fathers? Because if you look at the Nordic countries, or even the European countries, such as Germany, Sweden and Norway, their paid parental leave is more than 40 weeks for both parents compared to our 16 plus three days.

Mr Teo Chee Hean: The Member is talking about parental leave, not maternity leave? Maternity and parental leave – yes. The last we looked at maternity leave, we were very careful because there was also another group of persons who were very concerned that this would impact upon the employability of women. That was a fairly large area of concern. We wanted to make sure that we did not, through making maternity leave provisions more generous, impact on women being employed – as a result of which it would be harder for women to be employed. That is not what we want to have happen as well. And that is why we have this balance where the one additional month of the maternity leave is actually paid for by the Government.

We are open to ideas on how this can be done and I do support having some signal and some practical measures in which men are encouraged to take on a greater role in parenthood and being a present parent rather than a sort of parent from a distance.

Mrs Lina Chiam (Non-constituency Member): I would like to ask a supplementary question. I would like to ask a very controversial question of the Deputy Prime Minister. Would he consider "Baby Drop", since Malaysia is doing that and we are having this population problem of not having enough babies? And since the child is born from God's love and not the fault of the parents, is it possible that the Deputy Prime Minister would consider a "Baby Drop" for Singaporeans to drop their babies off in cases where the child is born out of wedlock?

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Mr Teo Chee Hean: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think this is – as Mrs Chiam says – a controversial area. We must be very careful when we implement such measures whether or not we end up inadvertently encouraging unwanted pregnancies and births, and causing greater problems as a result. So, I think we need to be very careful about this.

Ms Janice Koh (Nominated Member): Sir, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his response. My supplementary question is with regard to the strategies that Singapore employs. Irrespective of marital status, just looking at a whole country's statistics, can Singapore not continue to model after the Nordic countries in terms of employing strategies that could also work in Singapore? Irrespective of how we calculate the statistics, whether it is birth out of wedlock or within the family context?

Let me re-phrase. We have been talking about the statistics, comparing the Nordic countries and Singapore, and how the main difference is in calculations. I mean the Nordic countries count out-of-wedlock births as legitimate births, whereas in Singapore we are looking at encouraging baby-making within the family structure. What I am trying to say is, can we not look at models across the board and strategies that have worked in Nordic countries in any case?

Mr Teo Chee Hean: Yes, we are certainly looking at that, but we have to be very careful. I raised the issue of marriages out of wedlock only because we have to be careful about how we implement the measures. There may be collateral side effects. There are major cultural differences. When we look at the urbanised East Asian societies – Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong – they also have low fertility rates. They have also tried measures of various kinds. While we will certainly look at all these measures, we have to be careful of the collateral side effects, the unintended side effects on our society. And we also have to be realistic about what we can achieve.

Mr Speaker: Mr Seah Kian Peng, last question.

Mr Seah Kian Peng (Marine Parade): Sir, two supplementary questions for the Deputy Prime Minister. These are proposals which I have raised several times over the last few years. The first one is concerning a group of people who want to have children but for various reasons are unable to. IVF – can we do more for them? I know we are already extending some subsidies. Could these be further increased because this is the group of couples who want to have children?

My second supplementary question is something very uncontroversial. It is relating to paternity leave. I have argued several times in the House, I have been pushing to legislate paternity leave. I recognise the other angles, the business costs of it. But I think we should make a start somewhere, and legislating it even for as short as one day. It is an important signalling effect from the Government. After all, all of us recognise that parenting is a shared responsibility by both the mother and the father. Having talked to many residents, young couples, many of them have cited that paternity leave is something that is important to the family. I believe it is important to push that and allow our TFR to go up. I hope the Deputy Prime Minister would consider these two suggestions.

Mr Teo Chee Hean: Mr Speaker, Sir, I know of Mr Seah's work in the area of families, and also particularly fatherhood, and I appreciate it very much. And these are all ideas which we will take into consideration.

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