Talk back with Lance and Daniel from 6 p.m. Hello everybody, welcome into Talk Bank where you lead the show. We need to talk about why Singapore's fertility rate didn't get a boost from the dragon year. The dragon year did not boost Singapore's birth numbers. We're asking you. Why the fatal fertility rate has remained at its record low of 0.97 in 2024, despite it being the year of the dragon. So it didn't go up, didn't go down,
it's just 0.97. Yeah, because normally when you have dragon years, it gives a bump up for birth rates here. Uh, with the Chinese, especially the Chinese deeming it an auspicious time to have babies. Uh, yet, early data showed that there were 30,800 resident births last year, just slightly up from 30,500. So I jumped in 300, but still not enough to make a change to that 0.97.
Uh, record low fertility rate in 2024. Nice. OK, so here's the thing, have people just given up the idea of cultural reasons for choosing the year of the birth, or is it The trump card is still cast. And that has now trumped the year of the dragon. I'm also going to throw another thing in this, yeah, maybe couples don't wanna have kids. Point blank blank 7 is the new norm. Yeah. What do you do? Please join the discussion as we ask the question, why do the dragon boost Singapore's numbers?
Have your say. It's Talkback with Lance and Daniel. Call in 669-119-38 or WhatsApp 963-11-938. Doctor Tan, Paul Lin joining us, senior research fellow Institute of Policy Studies. Doctor Tan, hello, welcome.
Thank you for having
me. Have we usually some kind of boost from Dragon?
Yes, I think that um usually we did uh for the past few cycles, um we've observed a boost in the fertility rate when it came to the dragon year.
OK, maybe you can tell us, Dr. Tan, why are we seeing this sort of drop when it comes to The dragon, yeah.
Well, I have to tell you that, uh, you know, it's impossible to see everything in advance. Uh, I myself was a little surprised that there wasn't a boost, uh, but what I will tell you is that, uh, and what a lot of people don't take into account is that the dragon year phenomenon is actually uh somewhat of
a relatively new and recent thing. Um so previous, so it started in the 70s, uh natural pre Uh, previously before that, anybody who is, uh, deeply intimate with the um idea of astrology, Chinese astrology would know that the way that people will look into uh what would be a good time to have a child is actually based on your uh parts uh 8. Characters, right? And that would not just be a year, which is a fairly minor consideration. It also depended on
the month, the day, even the hour of birth. So there'll be 84 different things determining your 8 characters, and that actually is what is used to tell fate for fortune telling. So why did this dragon phenomenon come about? Um, I think it basically it was a reaction to a lot of things that were going on in the, in that period. So you know that at that point we also had a cultural revolution, um, in in in China, um, um.
I mean, I mean around that period, um, this was a period where, um, there were a lot of cultural changes and um including the way that people thought about having kids. So in the past having kids was, uh, was not something that people debated about and everybody wanted to have children.
Um, but then came along all these cultural changes and you know we actually invented new ways of um of thinking about what what what are the what are the cultural factors that are relevant um to things like uh childbearing.
are not so relevant anymore and now cost is a bigger factor than cultural. That's one of the things that we want to talk about a little bit as to why this dragon year didn't work. Let's go to the phone lines first, Dr. Tan. Christina has called in one of our listeners, 669-11938. Christina, why do you think the dragoner did not boost Singapore's birth numbers? Actually, if you are smart, you won't want to give birth to a dragon year. To have to be too many kids and the competition is.
It's going to be so crazy. So I guess people all know everybody is thinking are smarter now, you know that, you know, well, you know, you have too many kids during the dragon year, and you're fighting with, with so many kids for not only for primary school, you have to fight with them for secondary school, you have to fight with them till tertiary, you know. Army also. And yeah, army also. So why bother?
Is that really a factor? No, it is true. I've heard, I've heard this many a time that because so many people in the previous dragon years, all the kids' classroom sizes were bigger, even for their matches. Is that what you heard as well, Christina? Yes, of course. And I have a relative who gave birth, I think during 1988, there were 52,000 or 54,000 babies. So that was crazy here. And every, every time when they come to a like a critical year, like primary 64, they are so worried.
And, and they are so anxious because that's where they are fighting with people. Even if you are good, you have to be really, really very good to get into a good school. Singapore small country have to worry about HDB size, HDB price. Now also worry about what year you're born in, putting, uh, Tiger is that the unpopular year? Tiger is the unpopular in the calendar. I'm a monkey, I'm a monkey. How monkey or not? Rabbits also quite good. Christina, so nice to hear from you.
Thank you so much. OK bye. Dr. Tan, what do you think about what Christina had to say that based on previous experience, there were just too many kids born and it was competition for resources.
Yeah, exactly, I think Christina is absolutely right, but as time went on because it's a recent. Kind of a new thing. I think people start, it wasn't yet culturally stable and then, and the more, the more time went on, the more people became more aware of the problems of being part of a large cohort.
Um, and, uh, actually what you asked about the monkey, uh, zodiac, and so, uh, I just wanted to point out that in Singapore we have something quite interesting because you know how, uh, men go to NS and they delay their entry into the labor market. So when we did research, um, with my colleagues at NUS, we found that, um, in fact, it's not just dragon year, uh, children who tend to have lower wages.
Uh, wages, when we looked at their wages, their labor market wages, um, because they're in a large cohort, but also people who are are paired with them in, um, the, the year of the horse, because men come out of NS a bit later, right, than women do. So they actually match with women from born in the year of the horse. And we also find that for that particular set of People, they also have lower wages. So definitely that may be a very good rationale behind what Christina
is
saying.
Tiger. But Dr. Tan, we still need a replacement rate of 2.1 to allow the population to replace itself. At the rate we're going, we can have more older people and not too many young people.
Um, that's right. Um, so it's, it's actually the case that even though we are all very used to the idea that Singapore is a low fertility country and we have a sub replacement TFR, the fact is that demographic changes in Singapore are not yet stabilized. There's still a lot of changes ongoing. Um, the reasons for why people don't have children actually has changed from just Uh, because it's too expensive, um, to other considerations as well.
You know, people these days also, for example, don't want to have children in order to have, uh, old age insurance. Um, and that's, that's something that's positive. Actually, it can be a source of relief, right? Because you don't have to depend on your children and your, your children don't have to, uh, pay for you when you get old. But But at the same time, that reduces the reasons for
having children. There are a lot of um, so that to to just uh make it sweet and short, um, there are other ongoing reasons as to why um people actually are changing the reasons for not having children. It's not just about cost as anymore actually other um changes happening we see um by cohort.
All of our listeners. Made a punny comment. Apparently our low fertility rates will continue to drag on. Drag on, get it get it well done, Alvin, well done. Uh, another listener says people are holding off because they, they're in anticipation of the SG 60 gifts from the government.
I don't think that you can hold off the baby la, you know what I mean, like, like, I don't think somebody last year said, no, no, no, no, maybe wait till 60, then have the baby at 60, but you've got to start now because you know it's 9 months and you're looking at December, November, December already, you know, so if you want to get on to the year of the dragon, it's too late for that, but this year is the you have the snake. So the year of the snake, what, what is it like?
You know, is it popular at all or have you noticed sub uh substantial or significant folds, Doctor Tan?
No, we, uh, actually only see significant differences in how many kids people have in tiger and dragon years in the past in
Singapore. Oh, OK, uh, bottom line, maybe people don't care anymore. That these cultural reasons for having a baby in a specific year doesn't matter anymore. Is there any evidence, has, has any of your studies pointed towards that? I'm curious.
Yes, I think that um it is very, uh there are very um that's very clear indication uh from various different polls that different cohorts actually have different attitudes towards, towards family formation.
And the younger generation in general, when they say they don't want what the reason why they're not having children, it's not just because they didn't have the chance to get married, it's actually that they really do have either less interest in family formation or they would cite something like um they they feel that um it may not be a good thing to have kids,
yeah,
so that's something that you know. is different from previous generations.
Yeah, I guess another thing is back then, if you had a kid or about to plan for a kid, you would also get a lot of pressure from your parents or grandparents, relatives. So maybe today, would you say that kids don't, don't bother about that sort of pressure. They say, I mean we're doing our own thing, so leave us alone. And uh and, and there'll be a forecast and what year might be, you know, practices. Yeah, those were quite popular as well. People would look at the stars or
certain alignments and then decide. Would you say as well, Dr. Tan, we saw less marriages, I think 24,800 in 2024 compared to 26,500 in 2023. Uh, was that a result of delays due to COVID? So maybe people are marrying less and Uh, maybe planning to have kids 23 years after marriage life. Well,
it could be actually the opposite. The baseline was higher, um, in those years, right, so you have all these catch up marriages happening, um, because they couldn't get married in 2020, 2021, pushed it back to 22, 23, so when you compare that 2024 to 23, it may be that uh part of that is that the um that the baseline was higher than 23.
Um, at the same time, I think that when we talk about things like, uh, specifically, you know, I want to have babies in the dragon year versus, uh, and, uh, thinking about things like that, I think it's kind of an interesting paradox because on the one hand, there's never been more, it's never been more profitable to be an astrologer, you know.
Uh, that's big money now it's a huge industry, um, so people are still ascribing or at least they're interested in astrology, but on the other hand, I think people just don't have the luxury anymore of, uh, trying to time children exactly when they have it. One thing is that we're all getting older, um, and when you get older, you start to get Anxious about when I can have a kid. I can't wait till dragon year, right, uh, to have a child.
I can't delay, uh, if it's a it's a tiger year because I'm hitting my fertility, um, you know, uh, age kind of, uh, when I want to get all my babies out, you know, and maybe for some people, I want to have all my babies by the time I'm 35. So for them, it, it would be a matter of much more practical considerations, like, what can I do it now? Will my boss be happy? Um, is, is it OK if I have another baby within 2 years? These are the kind of things I think that are more on the minds of
people timing it to things like when the HDB will be ready as well.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so there are other things that make it so that the space is quite constrained actually for a lot of us.
But we're also offering opportunities of flexi hours for people. And some of the, the goodies is you could have up to 9 months of parental leave, which is quite a lot. Don't you want to take advantage of that?
Yeah, I think that there are, uh, definitely, um, um, incentives that, you know, and, um, I, I would say, uh, support, uh, given to families that people can respond to. Um, I, I think it's just a matter, uh, for a lot of people of whether they perceive that they can, they can, they are in a good place to have children. Um, if you look at, if you look at what, when you ask people, do you want to have, do you want to get married? Do you want to have children?
Actually, most people would say yes, that would be ideal, it's not that they're saying that it necessarily is a bad it's something they don't want to have, but where is it in the queue is the question. Is it at the front of the queue? Or is it in the back of the queue? Is the front of the queue more like financial stability, and if I can get financial stability, I can get, um, uh, my family support, um, and other kinds of, uh, social support,
my networks are up. um, then at that point, at the back of the queue, the next item will be having a child, right, getting married and so forth. Um, the problem is that then you need everything to fall in place for a lot of people, and if that doesn't happen. Right, if it's pushed back too late, you know, or there's some kind of setback, then you don't see um the bus coming.
I don't think so much. Um, one of our listeners whats up and says, I've got a dragon baby. I was so happy when I heard the news. That being said, I've never felt more time starved after having a child. But it's still worth it, I think. We want to have a 2nd kid, but there's just no time. Work is too hectic, just like what you were just saying, Prof. Uh, another person WhatsApping across and saying, Hi, Daniel and Lance, I'm born in the dragon year and I gave birth to my #2 in December last year.
So dragging you about the dragon, that's kind of cool. Uh, the cost is high, you need energy to take care of the kids and it takes lots of me time a couple time. Basically, your kids, your life. Lots of my friends in my age bracket are opting to be dinks, dual income, no kids, because they have full control of their life. They do what they want when they want. Yes, but you've got #2. Yeah, we just need one more push for number 33,
we need one more. Hey, replacement rate is 2.7. Talk back with Lance and Daniel from 6 p.m. OK, we're looking at Singapore's fertility rate, which kind of held steady last year. At 0.97, even though it was a dragon year. Singapore's fertility rate first fell below 1.0 in 2023. And by the way, according to some numbers that our team dug up, apparently, generally speaking, dragon your numbers are diminishing over time.
Like, in general, it's just going down. Yeah, I mean if you were to compare one dragon year to another dragon year la, so in 1976 it was 2.11. 1988, it was 1.96%, then it goes down to 1.6, 1.29, and now 0.97. So it's been declining. Whether or not it's higher than the other years, whether it's higher than monkey,
I don't know. Uh, we didn't compare that. We've got many of your comments and your questions coming in being a part of the show as we ask you why didn't the dragon year boost Singapore's birth numbers. Uh, Ariel Lim is also joining us in the segment. She's a mother of three. She'll be talking to us in just a moment, but one of our comments I want to read out, our listener says you didn't leave your name, uh, let me scroll back, see if you left it before. No. OK, so your current comments states,
just 2 cycles is a change of a generation. How many of us still actually follow strong Chinese culture? We're influenced by other ideologies. We have couples spending more on pets than having a child at home. And also, how about looking at childbirth with reference to dragon parents. Not many of us became parents when we were 24, maybe only when we were 36. So yeah, the age that you become a parent directly impacts how many kids you're going to have and whether you can
hit that total replacement rate, which I believe is 2.7. Uh, let's go to Ariel Lim, mother of three, joining us right now. Hello, Ariel. Hello, hello. Hi. So, um, amongst your peer group, I'm curious and yourself as well, did the choice of year, for example, dragon year, impact your decision? I would say I echo what the the previous uh comments said about how the zodiac doesn't really matter to, uh, my friends and I very much now. So I don't think we were like looking out for this year or
I must give birth to a baby. No need to go and pick the definitely not, definitely not. Yeah, I would say that's way more common and and I guess my generation. 30s and yeah. Was it easy for you to conceive? Did you struggle at all? Do you know of people who are trying to have kids but are struggling? Could that be another factor too? It's just more difficult to conceive these days.
Yeah, it does seem like I do hear a lot more stories of people having trouble conceiving, although it could also be social media because, um, you know, these issues are people needing to go for IVF or uh assisted reproductive uh technologies. Uh, there's a lot more exposure and coverage of these issues also in the media, but so I wouldn't, yeah, I wouldn't know, you know, actual numbers in difficulty of conception, but, um. I do hear of people, I guess my age, we
see a mix, a mixed group. I mean there are people who, you know, didn't plan and and then conceived, and then we have those people who plan and plan and just really find a lot of trouble conceiving, yeah. So you're soon to be pregnant now. Yes, yes. Was there any hope that could have been a dragon? Uh, no, not at all. Yeah Time is what time is. 9 months is 9 months. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And are any of your other kids dragon babies by
any chance? No, no. No, I don't actually know what I mean what they are, so yeah, it doesn't matter to the younger generation. Yeah, I really think not many people look at it. Did you have to convince mom and dad about that? Uh, no, my parents don't really look at it too, so I guess it's just, uh, it's also cultural for my family. And your thoughts as well, Ari, the Large family life HG initiative, which was announced just a couple of weeks ago by uh Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.
Uh, so Uh, to be really honest, because he hyped it up at, uh, I think it was Edira last year, National Day rally. Uh, I really looked forward to it. Yeah, so, um, I mean when it came out, I was still very thankful, but I was, I was like, oh, OK, it's, it's
more of in a handout scheme, which is good. I think, uh, the money really helps to cover delivery, etc. Um, but you know, uh, I've like other friends with big families as well, and we were kind of hoping of a more schematic, like, you know, maybe COE different larger houses built for larger families, you know, something that's a bit more categorically different as opposed to like get sorry I know, I know it's so interesting to hear you use the phrase big family.
What would you describe as a big, I mean, congratulations, well done with 3, you've hit total replacement rate, um, which is 2.7%, so you had your 3 well done replaced already sorted, um, but what is big family to you and to your peers? Because my dad, for example, my dad came from a family of 7. My mom came from a family of 55 siblings on my mom's side, 7 siblings on my dad's side. Yeah, on my mom's side they were like 9 siblings. So big family as well. Those days are gone, and I've
got 3 older. How about you? What is big to your generation, Ariel? Yeah, I think, I think 3 and more are definitely big. I don't know whether 2 will become big too, but anyway, 3 and more are definitely considered big in my generation. Uh, yes, I do have friends with with 3 and more or I do know of people who want 3 and more but they're not really the majority and like, you know, I guess my parents' generation.
So my mom has like 6 siblings. Uh, so when we heard of this large family scheme now being 3 and more, uh, we were, I guess surprised and yet not surprised at the same time because yeah, frankly when you go around anecdotally or like, you know, our experience shows that most people have have to. Two or less and when you see like, you know, families with like 4 or 3, it's like wow, you know, respect, man, those two parents heroes, you think it's ebbs and flows
as well? Do you think currently Singapore is at a record low of 0.97? Do you think it will change maybe, I'm not sure whether they're going to be even newer initiatives, or do you reckon it's just going to continue to decline A? Are you the exception rather than the norm?
OK, it does feel like I'm the exception sometimes, um, and also I think studies have been done on this, you know, uh, uh, and one demographer, she actually said that while government policies have been effective in lowering, um, the, the total fertility rates around the world, they have not seen this kind of success with policies in the other direction to raise fertility rates, um, despite, you know, huge
amounts of spending. So I mean, Singapore isn't an exception here and I think what we're seeing is a whole like overhaul of like value systems, um. You know, people focusing less on like the practicalities of like roof over your head, food to eat, uh, you know, uh, money and dollars and cents issues and going into more, uh, you know, quality of life, uh, you know, do I want to sacrifice my life for like kids whom I don't know will be grateful to me in the future.
So that's what we hear a lot, um, on the streets at least, uh, and whether that's good or bad, I mean, We all have our personal opinions, right? Yeah. So it's a little difficult to change, change minds on this. I feel in our current uh generation, yeah. I'm 44 and I just remembered one of my classmates from junior college who married his junior college sweetheart, by the way, they have 6 kids. Wow, yeah, every time we see them posting photos of
their children, we're like, which one is this one? Like, his goal is to build his own soccer team. That's what he says. He's getting close, half a team at least his goal, right? If he and the mom joins in, that's 8 of them right there. But that's, that's. That's wild, right? To have a family today that has 6 kids. That's wild, very common in the past, not today, not today. So what do you think is, I mean,
obviously our fertility rates are low. And Ariel, like you said, it was wonderful to see some of those um support measures that were announced as well. What would you like to see just from a family point of view, I mean, do you, I think 3 is the perfect number. I come from a family of 3. I have an older sister and a younger brother who's just right. I'm the middle child, which is the best one. Studies have proven it. OK, studies have proven it. Um, do you think 3 is the ideal?
Uh, well, I mean, I'm definitely open to having more. I hope my husband's not listening in on this now. But anyway, yeah, uh, it's interesting because actually, um, one of the organizations I, I help out with, uh, we did a survey of like parents, I mean, uh, I mean families in Singapore, and we found that about 24% of uh married couples do want to have 3 or more kids, just that, uh, whether they realize it or not.
Another issue I think what is the issue? The issue is, is it because they're starting later, so fertility becomes a medical issue? Is it because waiting for HDB? Is it because too costly? Those are all the things that keep getting mentioned on our show. What is the one for you that stands out?
Uh, I mean, it definitely is costly, uh, and, and, you know, when you really crunching the numbers, you do see there's a lot of opportunity costs like the amount of money that's going into little human beings, OK, which is, you know, good, um, you know, it takes away from everything else. Yeah, but, uh, I mean, in our interface with a lot of larger families, we find that there's a common threads that, that, you know, go into their their.
Thinking, which is that, you know, again, not the dollars and cents considerations, but the value and meaning about, you know, having children and building families, uh, plus the worth and potential of these children. OK, I'm so sorry my kids in the background. No, no, never apologize, yeah, you've got kids. Uh, tell us about your ecosystem as well, you know, have you got good parental support? Have you got um a good uh uh friends and relatives who are there for you?
Have you got a, a boss that's also quite understanding, so it all works out quite well because if you need help, it's easy to get it, Ariel. Yes, so the help, the ecosystem of help is definitely essential for for large families, I find, um, and it's not just about the direct ecosystem, also the indirect ecosystem that kind of cheers you on, you know, is in the the deep with you, uh, you know, other families with large, you know, as in with with X number
of kids and and counting. So friends who understand you, that's important. Uh, another thing I was thinking of, um, was also grandparent leave, you know, because we're we're seeing a generation of like younger grandparents who are not, you know. Ready to retire yet, and yet they're still kind of willing to be quite hands-on with children. So I mean my friends and I were talking about this and you know there's also a push to to kind of involve
grandparents in this whole um ecosystem, right? So yeah, we were thinking oh maybe grandparents leave for the working grandparents, but I know that that's a quite a niche area. Are you thinking about the future where you could be caught up with your kids and looking after your aging?
That could happen, um, and I think that's a reality for a lot of uh families and it's also one of the government's fears, I think the increase of sandwich families uh where only a few children will be supporting, um, yeah, the aging and then the the the the young and vulnerable. So, uh, for me, I think, uh, we have, because I'm still, I guess, relatively young, we can still prepare for that. Yeah, so we're still thinking about that, putting some money aside.
So I guess there really are a lot of monetary and financial considerations for all these things, uh, and they are very real. Ariel Lim, who is a mother of three, on Talkback, our question for today, why did the dragoner not boost Singapore's birth numbers? Thank you for your calls and thank you for uh joining us on WhatsApp as well.