Despite years of generous support for parents, the decision to have children increasingly has little to do with money, with the fertility rate stuck below 1.
For many young adults, priorities have shifted toward careers, personal freedom and quality of life, leaving traditional family planning further down the list.
Singapore’s experience reflects a broader trend across developed economies. As countries grow wealthier and more urbanized, birth rates tend to fall. South Korea, Japan and China have all slipped well below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman needed to keep populations stable.
In Singapore, the numbers are especially stark. Preliminary estimates put the fertility rate at about 0.97 in 2024, far below levels seen around independence in 1965, when women had roughly 4.6 to 4.7 children on average, Bloomberg reported.
Government leaders have acknowledged the challenge. Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said earlier this year that it was difficult to offer optimistic signals as population data for 2025 are still being compiled. At the same event, another minister described the situation as bleak, after a moderator joked that people now seem more enthusiastic about raising pets than children, The Straits Times reported.
Low birth rates carry real consequences. Singapore is aging rapidly and is on track to become a “super-aged” society, where one in five residents is 65 or older. To cope, the government has relied more on immigration and pushed faster adoption of robotics and artificial intelligence to support the workforce.
Unlike Japan, South Korea or China, Singapore has long been more open to foreign workers, particularly in technology, engineering and finance. That approach offers flexibility, but it also has political limits. Since a voter backlash in 2011, the government has stressed that immigration must not come at the expense of jobs for citizens.
The lack of results from baby bonuses has raised a broader question for governments worldwide: how much influence can policy really have over fertility? Even when incentives fail to lift birth rates, they still improve family welfare and signal social support, even if they do not change long-term trends.
Experts warn against expecting quick fixes. Financial incentives cannot easily undo deep cultural changes around marriage, work and personal choice.
In Toxic Demography, researchers argue that once population decline begins, it tends to gather momentum, making reversals slow and uncertain.
A shrinking population does not mean economic decline. Singapore remains one of the world’s wealthiest economies, with GDP per capita continuing to rise to rank second worldwide in 2025, after Switzerland. In that sense, demographic strain is less a sign of failure than a byproduct of development.
The roots of the fertility crisis extend beyond policy. Many women today want to build careers, housing and childcare costs keep rising, and domestic responsibilities remain unevenly shared.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin has argued that meaningful change will also require men to become more reliable partners and fathers.
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