Singapore TFR: How Our Economic Miracle Engineered a Crisis

It is official. The four so-called “Asian Tigers” have the lowest total fertility rates (TFR) in the world. Known for their exceptional economic growth in the late 20^th century, they are now at risk of undermining their economic success due to their low birth rates.

As of 2025, Singapore was fourth lowest in the world for TFR, at 0.87. It was behind Taiwan (0.695), Hong Kong and South Korea (both 0.8).

These rates fall far short of a TFR of at least 2.1 – meaning that there should be an average of 2.1 children born to a woman over her lifetime – needed for a society to replace itself.

As a country which ranks among the top ten in GDP (gross domestic product) per capita, Singaporeans are often proud of our nation’s growth “from Third World to First” within the short span of a few decades since Independence.

Behind this lies a largely unspoken undercurrent: A campaign of population control which helped to drive and entrench economic development as a foremost priority, and many of the mindsets that are central to Singapore culture today.

For this, we need to retrace our steps.

“Stop at Two” Population Control Campaign

From its inception, Singapore was gripped with Malthusian-like fears that overpopulation would strain the poor island-nation’s limited resources and threaten its survival. With a population of over 1.8 million in 1965, the then-Health Minister Yong Nyuk Lin described the young nation as “a very over-crowded little island State!”

Adding to these fears were internal communal tensions and external threats such as Indonesia’s Konfrontasi (an Indonesian term meaning “confrontation”) campaign of armed conflict against the young nation.

Driven by a survivalist impulse and an acute sensitivity to threats and circumstantial constraints, the government established the Family Planning and Population Board shortly after independence, with the aim of bringing Singapore’s population growth in line with “the prevailing rates of population increase now found in the prosperous and advanced countries of the world”.

A consistent narrative throughout the campaign was to advance economic growth and raise living standards for the population, by curbing fertility rates. When voluntary sterilisation and abortion were legalised in 1969, the new Health Minister Chua Sian Chin suggested that abortion could help keep the population in “bearable numbers” where “each has [a] reasonable expectation of livelihood and a reasonable quality of life”.

Applying this narrative to individual families, Parliamentary Secretary Sha’ari bin Tadin hailed in 1971 “the need to keep a family small in order to maintain a high standard of living”, and called upon Parliament to “eradicate the old concept that large families are a sign of prosperity”.

These philosophical undercurrents became fully realised the very next year, with the launch of the government’s now-infamous “Stop At Two” population control campaign. Propaganda posters carried slogans such as “Small families, brighter future – Two is enough” and “The more you have, the less they get – Two is enough”, with the implication that couples should keep their families small in order to improve their standard of living and invest more resources into each child.

Those anti-natalist messages were buttressed by a slew of disincentives, including a reduction of income tax relief to cover only the first three children, a reduction of paid maternity leave from three to two confinements, and a lower priority for larger families on the wait list for public housing.

“For the Singapore of the 1970’s the third child is a luxury. The fourth and fifth are anti-social acts,” said then-Health Minister Chua Sian Chin.

Declining Fertility, Rising Economy

Within the first three decades of independence, Singapore experienced rapid economic growth, with its annual GDP growing an average of 8% per year. This earned Singapore the title of “Asian Tiger”, alongside South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

At the same time, owing in large part to population control measures, Singapore’s TFR fell for the first time to below replacement levels of 1.82 in 1977, down from 5.76 in 1960 before independence.

This was no mere coincidence. High fertility in the 1960s, combined with an emphasis on education and population control in the 1970s, meant that the country had a large, young and well-educated workforce who generally had small families. As a result, Singaporeans could dedicate an enormous amount of time, energy and effort to work. This offer of a hardworking, English-speaking, educated workforce alongside a stable polity with robust economic infrastructure proved highly attractive to foreign investors.

Bloom and Williamson, in a 1993 article published in the World Bank Economic Review, calculated that demographic transitions accounted for about one-third of the economic “miracle” in East Asia from 1965 to 1990, with Singapore being one of the countries that “benefited most”.

Yet the overwhelming efficacy of the family planning campaign threatened to undo Singapore’s economic success, due to low fertility rates. As a result, by the mid-1980s, the government began expressing concern about the risk of “negative population growth” and “a rapidly ageing population”.

However, the long-standing commitment to economic considerations remained even when the government officially reversed course on population control in 1987, having earlier abolished the Family Planning and Population Board. This new campaign to encourage Singaporeans “have three, and more if you can afford it” – seeking to normalise three-child families – still retained the implicit message that those who cannot “afford it” should have fewer children.

Materialistic, Hyper-competitive and Anxious Culture

Despite numerous incentives and policy measures since 1987, the low fertility trap seems impossible to escape. Like many other developed countries, people in Singapore have increasingly delayed marriage and parenthood. As of 2024, the median ages at first marriage and parenthood were around 30 and 33 years respectively, with an increasing number of singles.

Locals routinely cite financial cost as the top deterrent from parenthood, a sentiment common across all income levels. In response, the government has implemented measures including “Baby Bonuses”, tax rebates, childcare subsidies and enhancements to parental leave through the years. As of 2025, the government provides cash grants of up to US$42,000 per child and another US$157,000 in subsidies from preschool to secondary education.

These measures have still persistently failed to raise birth rates, with the result that the population enters into “super-aged” status this year, with 21% of locals aged 65 years and above.

At the root of the issue lies a hard truth that policies and incentives alone cannot remedy: Value systems have radically shifted over the course of Singapore’s history.

The prevailing culture has become hyper-competitive and materialistic, amidst a constant sense of lack and constraint, fear and anxiety and desire for control over circumstances. These are aptly encapsulated in the colloquial expressions ‘kiasu’ and ‘kancheong’ (Hokkien terms meaning “fear of losing out” and “anxious / nervous” respectively).

These mindsets have been ingrained into the collective psyche amidst a wider national narrative repeatedly emphasising the vulnerability of the small nation to internal and external threats, years of population control propaganda and measures, and – somewhat ironically, are both a cause and effect of – rapid economic development.

As a result, getting married and having children rank low on locals’ life priorities. For those who do have children, a two-child family remains the norm, and parenting has become akin to a high-stakes investment in a seemingly endless pursuit of an ever-higher standard of living. Well-meaning parents pour enormous amounts of time, money and effort into each child, in hopes that they can do well in school, secure good jobs, and have a better chance at life.

In the midst of this hyper-competitive culture, education has become a stressful and expensive “arms race” where the school curriculum and co-curricular activities are not enough; successive generations of parents often supplement these in order for their children to stay ahead. Despite falling birth rates, spending on private tuition has skyrocketed 60% over the course of ten years to US$1.4 billion in 2023.

Can a “Reset” Succeed?

Singapore’s success “from Third World to First” has been intertwined with and driven in significant part by population control measures adopted in its early years. Most notably, the “Stop at Two” population control campaign did two things.

First, it helped to create a large and available workforce who generally had smaller families, and thus they could dedicate vast amounts of energy to their work. Today, our work culture remains characterised by a demand for single-minded focus, at the expense of family life.

Second, it embedded into our culture an emphasis on keeping families small in order to pursue a higher standard of living.

We are still feeling the effects these attitudes today.

For a nation with no natural resources except its people, Singapore’s low fertility is an “existential issue” for which the government has called for a society-wide “Marriage and Parenthood Reset”, forming a Workgroup to this effect.

It remains to be seen whether these efforts will succeed, but one thing is clear: Mere incentives and policies will not be sufficient to reverse the prevailing hyper-competitive, materialistic and anxious local culture today. A wholesale rethink of our nation’s values and priorities is necessary.