Singapore ranked no. 6 for the total net migration rate, which means that many foreigners wants to migrate into Singapore. It is also becoming more and more prevalent that you can see foreigners all around Singapore. We don't have enough Singaporeans in the labour force, thus the government allow more foreigners into Singapore to work to replace us. This may seem like it could work; but only for short term. We cannot keep attracting foreign talents to replace the lack of Singaporeans for they will eventually leave and go back to their home country.
Although we lack Singaporeans, but the irony is that we do not lack people at all. In fact, I feel like we're having overpopulation- too much immigrants in Singapore! Well, though not statistically proven, but take the MRT for example. Don't you think it's been squeezier and squeezier nowadays? The occasional MRT breakdown in the morning which might be due to overcrowding. The number of passengers in the train is too much to carry.
Then there is the ever-rising COE prices of cars which I feel is one of the measures of the government to want to reduce the number of cars on the road. However, there aren't any news about an ever increasing number of Singaporeans getting driving license over the years (not that I can find any...), so why are there more and more cars in the roads? Immigrats!
There is also the sky-rocketing housing prices. It is becoming more and more difficult to buy a house in Singapore because of the super high prices!
Many young couples marry late nowadays not because they do not want to marry early, but because they need money, many many more than the previous generations in fact. They need money to buy a house and build a family and seriously, Singapore is EXPENSIVE to live in. A typical 3 room flat can cost up to many hundred thousands depending on the location. An average salary of maybe 2k, if you deduct away your monthly phone bills, food expenses and other micellaneous fees; you don't even have much to save, let alone buying a house or start a family! Then comes to the immigrants (again), they don't just work here and go back, they need accomodations as well- which is also a cause of the high prices of houses because not only locals, but foreigners are competing for a place to stay as well. Don't you see more and more advertisements on rental houses these days? Which explains the increasing foreigners in our country.
There is baby bonus you say? What can a few thousand dollars, four-month maternity leave and six days of childcare leave do as compared to raising a child for the rest of your life? A few cans of milk formula and a few packets of pampers can easily spend away all those money and these supplies can't even last a baby for a few months. Morever the disheartening thing is that single mothers aren't eligible for these benefits! Are babies of single mothers not Singaporean? Ain't Singapore in need of local babies? I think that as long as babies are from Singaporean parent, they should also be able to enjoy these benefits and not be "stigmatised" in a sense.
In conclusion, I think that part of our high GDP is thanks to the foreign talents in Singapore but also thanks to them, our living expenses are ever rising. The fertility rate in Singapore is a call for concern for we are following the footsteps of Japan into a serious ageging population such that some parts of Japan like Kyoto and Tokyo has no such thing as retirement age. If fertility rate remains this low, people of our generation might also not have any retirement age and also the ratio for immigrants per Singaporean will bound to increase. Japan has come out with extensive measures such as the policiy Kodomo Teate whereby Japanese parents receive money to rasie their child until their kid turns 15 years of age. This definitely eases some burden of child expenses for parents. There's a saying "desperate time calls for desperate measures", so what would the Singapore government do to attract more babies? Hmm...
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2112rank.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
Single mothers should be given baby bonuses and other benefits: http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=3633
