Singapore is offering a one-off payment to encourage people to have babies during the coronavirus pandemic.
This decision comes as a result of the government’s worry that citizens are putting off parenthood as they struggle with financial stress and job layoffs.
Details of the amount that could be paid have yet to be released but it will be in addition to several hefty baby bonuses offered by the government.
Singapore has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, which it has struggled to boost for decades.
This predicament is in stark contrast to some of its neighbours such as Indonesia and the Philippines, which are facing the prospect of a massive spike in pregnancies from their coronavirus lockdowns.
“We have received feedback that Covid-19 has caused some aspiring parents to postpone their parenthood plans,” Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said.
Mr Heng said more details about amounts and how they will be paid would be announced at a later date.
Singapore’s current baby bonus system provides eligible parents up to S$10,000 ($7,330, £5,644) in benefits.
Singapore’s fertility rate touched an eight-year low in 2018, according to government data, at a rate of 1.14 births per woman. The falling birth rate is raising fears of a “demographic timebomb” – that is, a smaller working-age population having to support a bigger, retired population.
Many Asian countries face a similar issue of falling fertility rates, which could worsen during the pandemic downturn.
Earlier this year, China’s birth rate fell to its lowest since the formation of the People’s Republic of China seven decades ago. The country’s birth rate has been falling for years despite the easing of the much criticised one-child policy thereby posing a challenge for the world’s second-biggest economy.
Japanese policymakers have also been trying to coax Japanese into marrying earlier and raising bigger families since the 1990’s to little or no success. The country’s population has declined every year since 2007 and has the world’s highest proportion of people over the age of 65.
Likewise, South Korea has struggled for years with an aging population, shrinking workforce, and low birth rates. In 2018, the country’s total fertility rate fell to its lowest since records began.
Some of Singapore’s neighbours however face the opposite problem.
In the Philippines, unintended pregnancies are forecast to spike by almost half to 2.6 million if Covid 19-induced movement restrictions remain until year-end, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
“These numbers are an epidemic in itself,” Aimee Santos, a spokesperson for UN agency in the Philippines, said in September.
The Philippines has the second-highest population in South East Asia at 108.4 million. It has one of the region’s worst virus outbreaks with more than 307,000 infections.
“These issues of women and children have largely remained invisible during the pandemic. It’s time to put them front and centre,” Senator Risa Hontiveros, head of the chamber’s committee on women, said last month.
She has backed calls for more female officials in the nation’s task force against the coronavirus outbreak.
