The Republic of Singapore is an island nation based at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula in South East Asia. It’s a small country taking up just 704 square kilometres. As with many tiny but wealthy countries worldwide, Singapore has been steadily increasing its land size using land reclamation techniques. In the 1960’s Singapore’s land mass was only around 540 square kilometres, so it’s actually grown by almost 200 square kilometres in the space of just fifty years.
With its relatively tiny size and its industrial levels Singapore has become one of the densely populated countries in the world. It currently has around 5 million people in its population and the government is estimating that number will have risen to 7 million in 2030. The issue with that is that a lot of current predictions are showing that the bulk of that number will be made up of immigrants. Singapore’s population has always been incredibly diverse, this is illustrated in its four main languages and the vast number of Chinese people who reside in the country.
The issue with so many immigrants is that the number of nationals will start to be overwhelmed. The country’s government has started desperate measures to get the country’s tiny birth rate up. It’s so low due to a campaign which ended in the 70’s, it suggested that Singaporean families not have more than two children so as not to overcrowd the island nation. Sadly this has now come full circle and it’s time for the Singapore’s citizens to start having kids again. Huge financial incentives have been set out by the government. They’ve endorsed TV dating games, set up housing grants and have started subsidizing childcare. These are all interesting ideas for growing the national populations but many have pointed out that raising a child is a long-term investment and a one-off payment simply isn’t going to cut it. Time will tell whether these methods pay off or not.
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