SINGAPORE — The growing share of women remaining single is one major reason for Singapore's longstanding baby drought, with the resident total fertility rate (TFR) falling to below one in 2023 for the first time in Singapore's history.
Women aged between 21 and 34 were significantly less interested in marriage and parenthood than men in their age group.SINGAPORE — The growing share of women remaining single is one major reason for Singapore's longstanding baby drought, with the resident total fertility rate falling to below one in 2023 for the first time in Singapore's history.
Professor Jean Yeung, director of social sciences at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's Institute for Clinical Sciences and a professor at NUS' Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, said: "Since we will have an increasingly small number of women at a marriageable and child-bearing age, and births outside of wedlock are illegitimate in Singapore, the number of citizen births will likely continue to decline if the marriage rates keep declining.
But between 2005 and 2023, the drop in the TFR was due to the fall in the proportion of married women, which offset slight increases in marital fertility. Besides, marriage is no longer seen as a required life goal in Singapore, said Dr Mathew Mathews, principal research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies .
IPS senior research fellow Kalpana Vignehsa co-authored a study that found that women aged between 21 and 34 were significantly less interested in marriage and parenthood than men in their age group. The study polled about 2,400 Singapore residents in 2023. According to the experts, the good news is surveys consistently show that many young Singaporeans still want to get married and have children.
"Research shows men will take paternity leave only when it is on a 'take it or lose it' basis. We need this change to have a significant impact on gender norms in Singapore."
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