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- Singapore's population will start to shrink by 2025 if no new citizenships are granted to immigrants and the fertility rate remains low, a government paper has said
Singapore's population will start to shrink by 2025 if no new citizenships are granted to immigrants and the fertility rate remains low, a government paper said on Tuesday.
The paper said that without immigration and if the fertility rate remains at 1.2 babies born per woman -- among the lowest in Asia -- deaths among the ageing population will outstrip births by 2025.
"At that point, our citizen population will start to decline," said the paper released by the National Population and Talent Division, which is under the prime minister's office.
Singapore's total fertility rate (TFR) is well below the 2.1 babies per woman needed for the population to replenish itself naturally.
A shrinking population will also impact on the labour situation, said the paper, which is aimed at generating public discussion on the issue.
By 2030, "Singapore will experience an unprecedented age shift as over 900,000 baby boomers will retire from the work force and enter their silver years", the paper said.
The addition of new citizens is vital to ensuring an adequate number of working adults to support the elderly, it added.
"An inflow of 25,000 new citizens per year would keep the size of our working-age citizen population relatively stable," the paper said.
The number suggested is a 33 percent jump from the 18,758 new citizens accepted in 2010.
Singapore had a total population of 5.2 million in 2011, comprised of 3.26 million citizens and 532,000 permanent residents. The rest -- over one million -- are foreign workers on employment passes and their families.
The government's more open immigration policy was a hot issue during last year's general elections in which the ruling People's Action Party suffered its worst setback in the polls, winning an all-time low of 60 percent of the vote.
Singaporeans complain that the high number of foreign workers are giving them competition for jobs, housing, medical care and even for space on the train.
The government has tightened the hiring of foreign workers and sharpened the difference in benefits between permanent residents and citizens in a bid to appease public sentiment.
But the paper said immigration remains crucial to Singapore's long term survival.
If the fertility rate stays and no immigrants are granted citizenship, the citizen population could fall to around 2.5 million by 2060, said the paper, which set out five hypothetical population scenarios.
It cited 2012 as a "demographic turning point", as the country's first cohort of post-war baby boomers born between 1947 and 1965 start turning 65 years old.
The paper said the scenarios it drew were not predictions or forecasts, but illustrations of the growth and change expected if certain assumptions about future demographic trends continue over a certain period.
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