Migrants are a temporary solution, in the long term, mindsets must change, former PM says
Singaporeans need to marry and have children if they do not want the country to fold up, Mr Lee Kuan Yew warned on Saturday night.
In his annual National Day dinner speech to residents of Tanjong Pagar GRC and Tiong Bahru, Mr Lee kept his message on population simple: The country's citizens are not reproducing enough, and migrants are needed as a temporary solution.
But in the long run, mindsets must change, and the trend of declining birth rates needs to be reversed.
"If we go on like that, this place will fold up because there will be no original citizens left to form the majority," he said.
"And we cannot have new citizens, new PRs settle our social ethos, our social spirit, our social norms.
"So, my message is a simple one. The answer is very difficult, but the problems, if we don't find the answers, are enormous."
Mr Lee, who spoke first in Mandarin, and then in English, said that while getting married and having children are personal decisions, when Singaporeans do not marry and do not have children, it becomes "a national problem".
Addressing about 1,300 guests at Zhangde Primary School, he also spelt out current demographic trends.
The Chinese had the lowest fertility rate last year at 1.08. If this keeps up, it means that successive generations of the largest ethnic group here will halve in size in the next 18 to 20 years.
Indians and Malays fared marginally better with fertility rates of 1.09 and 1.64, respectively, but these were also below the replacement level of 2.1.
He also noted that around 44 per cent of Singaporean men and 31 per cent of women aged 30 to 34 are single.
By Leonard Lim
The Straits Times
Published on Aug 12, 2012
