Sex and the citystate: Singapore urges baby boom

To overcome one of the world's lowest birth rates, Singapore's government is promoting a baby boom.

To overcome one of the world's lowest birth rates, Singapore's government is promoting a baby boom.

Urging couples to lie back and think of Singapore is a new brief for Wong Kan Seng, the Home Affairs Minister. He has been put in charge of increasing the island's population and has been dubbed the Baby Tsar.

The job is more complex than merely playing Cupid. Sex and the city state has become a top government priority since this month's inauguration of Lee Hsien Loong, the Prime Minister, who has instituted a slew of incentives to increase family size.

A government bonus of £5,500 will be awarded for a third or fourth child. Maternity leave will increase from eight to 12 weeks, and parents of children under seven can take advantage of two days of childcare leave each year. Bigger housing grants will encourage single people to marry, followed by babycare subsidies and tax rebates for working mothers.

Statistics show that Singaporean women produce on average just 1.26 babies in a lifetime, which is too few to keep a population stable. At the present rate, United Nations experts warn, more than a third of the population will be pensioners by mid-century. Elder-care leave is an increasingly common company benefit as the population ages.

Singapore's birthrate has dipped dramatically as its economy has boomed. No longer are there worries about over-population, as in the 1960s when the average woman bore 5.8 babies. Career-building has led to professionals delaying marriage and babies for years, often until fertility is threatened by the biological clock. About 24 per cent of pregnancies are terminated.

Another concern is that the 20 per cent of the island's workers who are immigrants, mainly from Malaysia, will reproduce more quickly and eventually outnumber the locals. For the first time since the 1960s, foreign-born children are to be considered citizens.

Singapore's legislators are not coy about social engineering. New employment guidelines cut four hours off the former working week. This frees more time for romance in a nation that obsesses about the five C's: career, condominium, club, credit cards and cars.

"Past incentives provided by the government have not seemed to work, so there is an urgency to come up with something more drastic to reverse a decline in the fertility rate," said Dr Ho Khai Leong of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

A sex guru, Dr Wei Siang Yu, diagnoses the island's atmosphere as "too stressful and mundane" for babymaking and puts childless couples on love cruises to nearby islands.