~by: Leong Sze Hian~
I refer to the Department of Statistics’ Population Trends 2011, released on 28 September 2011 (see HERE).
In 2011, the number of non-residents increased by 89,400 or 6.9 per cent, compared to 51,300 or 4.1 per cent in 2010.
The number of permanent residents (PRs) declined for the first time by -9,000 or -1.7 per cent, compared to 7,800 or 1.5 per cent in 2010.
What this means is that the total foreign population (non-residents and PRs) increased by a net 80,400 (89,400 non-residents – 9,000 PRs) and 59,100 (51,300 non-residents + 7,800 PRs), in 2011 and 2010, respectively.
Therefore, on a rate of growth year-on-year basis, foreigners grew by 36 per cent (80,400 divided by 59,100).
So, in a way, the drop in PRs was more than made up for by the increase in non-residents.
Lower citizens growth
In contrast, citizens grew by only 26,500 or 0.8 per cent, in 2011, whih is yet another all-time low, like the 0.8 per cent in 2007 and 2005, and lower than the 0.9 per cent in 2010.
Since I understand that there were about 20,000 new citizens in a year, the growth in Singapore-born citizens may have been lower.
Ageing population
The median age rose to an all-time high from 37.4 years in 2010 to 38.0 in 2011.
Old-age support ratio
The ratio of working-age residents to elderly residents dropped to an all-time low. There were 7.9 residents aged 15-64 years for each resident aged 65 years & over in 2011, a decline from 8.2 in 2010.
More singles, divorces, less marriages
The proportion of singles among the resident population rose from 30 per cent in 2000 to 32 per cent in 2010. The proportion who were either divorced or separated also increased from 2.5 per cent to 3.3 per cent over the same period. Correspondingly, the proportion of married persons declined from 62 per cent to 59 per cent.
A relatively high proportion of males and females in their thirties were also never-married in 2010. Among those aged 30 – 34 years, 37 per cent of the males and 25 per cent of the females remained single in 2010, compared to the 31 per cent for males and 19 per cent for females in 2000.
A total of 24,363 marriages were registered in 2010, which was 6.6 per cent lower than the 26,081 registered in 2009.
The general marriage rate declined from 43.6 marriages per 1,000 unmarried males in 2009 to 39.4 in 2010. Among unmarried female residents, the rate dropped from 41.1 to 37.2 marriages per 1,000 unmarried females during the same period.
There were 7,405 marital dissolutions (i.e. divorces and annulments) in 2010, an increase from the 7,386 marital dissolutions in2009.
So, singles are at an all-time high, marriage is at an all-time low and divorce is at an all-time high.
Lowest fertility rate ever
Total live-births dropped by 4.1 per cent from 39,570 in 2009 to 37,967 in 2010. Resident births (i.e. births with at least one parent who is a Singapore citizen or permanent resident) also fell by 4.9 per cent from 36,925 in 2009 to 35,129 in 2010.
Singapore’s resident total fertility rate (TFR) continued to decline from 1.22 births per female in 2009 to 1.15 births per female in 2010.
The average number of children born was lower, the more educated the married females were.
So, this may further raise questions as to the effectiveness of our procreation policies which give more incentives such as tax benefits to higher income families.
More graduates
The educational profile of the resident population improved over the years. Some 49 per cent of the resident non-student population aged 15 years & over in 2010 had at least post-secondary qualifications, up from 33 per cent in 2000. The share of university graduates also increased significantly from 12 per cent in 2000 to 23 per cent in 2010.
The proportion of university graduates among residents aged 25 – 39 years increased from 21 per cent in 2000 to 44 per cent in 2010.
Less home owners
The Home Ownership Rate has continued to decline from 90.1 per cent in 2008, to 88.8 and 87.2 in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Is this an indication of the affordability of housing in Singapore?
Living longer
Life Expectancy At Birth rose to its highest ever at 79.3 and 84.1 years for males and females, respectively.
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Thank you for the succinct summary,Mr Leong. I don’t know why ST always like to interview the same-old same-old academicians and demographers every time. They say nothing new, especially one ex-govt official, paul cheung. He always toe the govt line….saying S’pore can sustain a higher population. These people only look at cold statistics…what about the feelings and emotions of people? Sure, squeeze in as many people as possible. We can be like HK, Tokyo, New York….but do we want to? We want swiss standard of living… we also want the kind of social space and environment that the Swiss enjoys (not physical space ‘cos we cannot increase Spore’s physical size). ST should start interviewing people not associated with statistics for alternate views…like architects, space planners, horticulturists, conservationists, social workers….
So, where did these 9,000 PRs go? Back home, or did they become citizens?
They became citizens lor, SG got in 27,000 new citizens per year more than make up for small drop in new PRs.
There are too many of them. Take the train and buses you can see their faces.They only talk in their own language and you can hear them.
DAMN DISGUSTING.
Why dont the Prime Minister and his Ministers take public transport and see what we Singaporeans are going through.
We have had enough of them. First Husband,Wife ans Children come here, than followed by his and her parents. Total number 10 foreigners,only god will know if they become citizens.
God help us Singaporeans.
Wow… pulled the second derivative of population size.
Again. political junk producer.
I’m apolitical observer. But this attitude of “who is not against us is for us, even the ugly ones” is destructive to your anti anti establishment cause.
I’m apolitical observer. But this attitude of “who is not against us is for us, even the ugly ones” is destructive to your anti anti establishment cause.
==========
hahahaha
kiss my ass, stooge
I tried to do the maths, but I can’t do it anymore. so based on my speculation, PR numbers dropped is due to a gov action, as hinted by GCT sometime last yr..
a link…
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1079513/1/.html
The foreigners increase is a bit more mind boggling. PRs not granted/declined citizenship, become foreigners ? Western expats flocking here ? or just blue collar workers which come here to build more condos?
Well Sporeans not marrying, or producing enough kids.
Well how to when everything is so expensive and wages going backwards?
Solution:
- every new HDB block will have 10pct of their units for cheap rent to young newly married couples. Have a built in rent increase so that they leave after 10 yrs, and make way for new generation.
Wedding Gift
govt should give cash grant to newly married to subsidise their rent of rooms/houses for say 2 to 3 years.
GodFather
All childcare facility should be heavily subsidised.
Education
Govt shld be responsible for early childcare education at kindergarden level which is now run by a political party!
Primary and sec schools shld give out free text books and uniforms.
Have all the above and see the TFR doing a quick U turn
“who is not against us is for us, even the ugly ones”
====
who are you saying is ugly? Foregner go home lah!! sob!
Poor mr leong
He is always writing based on what he don’t know.
Do citizens know what he don’t?
And bohchap about all the pertinent questions?
Mustafa was successful in the early days.
Recent extreme influx certainly increased his revenue.
Is mustafa grateful to the policy makers?
U bet i would if i were him or his daighters.
Every indian foreigners i know buy from mustafa.
my friend who works in public service dept told me that out of every 10 chinese
in SG, the proportion from PRC is high
What MM who step down ( or did he? ) do is always to plan for his son – meaning he felt these PRCs would keep his son in power.
There is a whole list of differences in culture between local chinese and PRC chinese.
But the most objectionable has to be their real belief that they are here to compete directly with locals in uni, professions and other areas.
Time to take the right for manipulating population from former MM and son.
I find that you the discontent and deprived SGs always accuse print media of propaganda and one sided reporting. But apparently you are willing to settle for third grade opposition propaganda junk such as this as long as it fuels your discontent spirit. Talking about wanting to hear what you like and shutting down all senses towards any thing outside your myopic world.
Current population around 5.13 million.
It’s getting so overcrowded people are getting impatient. That day I was buying something from Watson’s and the counter staff was explaining something to me, a female customer queueing behind me made sounds of annoyance. Even the PRC staff wasn’t too polite as she rolled her eyes when I asked for clarification – all these when we merely exchanged 2 sentences.
Really frustrating these days. You can’t get good service and the people around you just can’t seem to wait even a few seconds.
Then there are people who literally push you into the crowded MRTs at peak periods. But I’ve learned to live with it – I shove back at them later on.
Go to chinatown n bugis area.
Why are there now so many hot pot and authentic china food stalls n restaurants operated by true china people?
No business would be started wjthout critical mass.
We do not know exactly how many cjona new citizens there are. How many china foreigners , visitors, students there are.
Based on observations on the streets, i gather about 30% at least of all chinese i see are from china. Some dress well n u think they spore but they china. Many rich kids are studying here.
Sporeans know as usual, they can do nothing a out:
1. Influx
2. Job competition
3. Cost of living
4. Voting : many disenfranchised still either spoil voted or vote against will
This means the end.
1st world !
More graduates
The educational profile of the resident population improved over the years. Some 49 per cent of the resident non-student population aged 15 years & over in 2010 had at least post-secondary qualifications, up from 33 per cent in 2000. The share of university graduates also increased significantly from 12 per cent in 2000 to 23 per cent in 2010.
This is because we continue to import third-rate degree holders, and this statistic does not differentiate them from our traditional sources of university degrees.
How often have you heard that these third-rate degree holders are cheaper but cannot perform, but are made to look like they are performing?
When most people have degrees we will begin to see that education is nothing.
Its not how well you study.
Its how good are you at work.
So many now have degrees.
So many are now suffering and struggling to secure a job.
If you like to study, you can study well.
So, its not that a dropout is not as smart.
Its only they don’t feel like studying.
Scholarstic ability is over rated.
for every foreign worker(esp mainland chinese) who comes here, he brings along his non-working wife, children and both sets of gandparents. So, how does this contribute to the economy? for every 2 young persons, 4 old persons are added. How does this help with the aging population?
What if SG do not take in new citizen since 30 years ago?
Today,Our citizens no. may drop below 3 million.
Also,your next generations bear heavier burden to look after the old folks in SG!!
Digest—and talk
Support Ratio 2/3
(Number of Residents Aged 15-64 Years Per Elderly Resident) 7.9
Total Dependency Ratio 2/4a
(Per 100 Residents Aged 15-64 Years)35.3
— Child Dependency Ratio 2/4b 22.7
— Old-Age Dependency Ratio 2/4c 12.6
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.html
Hi amsg,
How do u know all 4 old folks can come here?
Besides,SG may NOT give the old folks PR.
They cannot enjoy any benefits at all.
Pl take note of status of non–citizens.
PR can enjoy welfare in education and health, but NOT HDB. They cannot buy flat direct fr HDB!
NON PR–no welfare!
@Mas Karamat Shamugam Nathan 1 October 2011
” Mustafa was successful in the early days.
Recent extreme influx certainly increased his revenue.”
———-
Mustafa as a Singapore company should make profit right ?
Compare Mustafa to Global Indian International School GIIS. Due to recent extreme influx of India born Indians certainly increased to 3 GIIS schools from 1 and now going international back to India with $150 million investment.
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/global-schools-foundation-to-set-up-schools-in-india/846993/
Now you compare Mustafa and GIIS and see the difference where the money is flowing to. Mustafa is expanding locally and providing 24 hour service. Nothing wrong with that.
the weeds are choking the plants in the farm…
why are there so much weeds? ask the farmer loh…
The govt . is finally reducing the intake of people to this country which is good to see , at least now they are listening to the people after the last election. We will always be depending on foreign workers as there are lot of jobs that are too lowly paid for locals. Unless a Minimum Wage system is introduce we will always have cheaper foreign workers to take away some jobs that Singaporeans can do. The only way I see to create a ‘level playing field” is to set a minimum wage.
Basically massive import still on. A lot of foreigners given scholarships, allowance to study in secondaries, colleges and universities. The numbers are alarming. And our universities are still going out to China and India to recruit them for grad and postgrad courses, giving free tuition etc.
I think the plan is really to dilute the 40% noises in SG.
A lot of them upon graduations are given jobs in ministries and GLCs with very high starting pay. And a few months, most given PRs and a year later, invited to citizenship. A chinese grad commands around $1000 rmb in China, in SG, he commands $3000 a starting pay, you think he wants to go home??
This who massive import of foreigners achieve two key objectives.
1. To shore up pappy support base and balance out the 40% noises.
2. To increase demand and supply – GDP.
” Go have babies,” is the resounding cry of the father of the PAP and the chorus in his stable. They do not seem to be able to distinguish between babies from their own loins and babies from strangers. Whether this incapacity to recognise their own is real or pretended, I do not know. Countries like Brunei and the Gulf States, while importing significant proportion of their workforce from outside the country, never depended on foreigners to give birth to babies for them. That is they never never confer citizenship on any foreigner, no matter how long he works in their country and would roundly reject any of their foreign babies as citizens. This is because, the rulers of these countries being much much more capable than our million dollar office holders, are very protective of their land. They say in Brunei that this land of ours is the land where we have spilled our blood ( tanah tumpa dara) and is sacrosanct. On a much more practical level, they see no reason to share their Nation’s assets with foreigners who have come to live and work among them for just a number of years or even for one generation.In Singapore our Genius Government quickly confers a share of our much vaunted State Reserve on anyone working here beyond 6 months by making them citizens. Worst, everything is suddenly open to them, our subsidised public housing, medical services, educational opportunities and millions of dollars spent to ‘integrate them’. What the hell is going on? Are we dealing with halfwits for Parliamentarians or pimps for the FT.
The Singapore Government is still not weaned from the practice of opening the floodgates to foreigners to get immediate money to boost the GDP. All 80 of the Parliamentarians have no other idea how to survive other than destroying the land in which we have spilled our blood. The 80 brains are squashed into one brain, the brain of the aging Father.
We in Singapore have the most stupid problem forced upon us: A Tsunami of foreigners. It is like a natural disaster. Yet the PAP boasts that they are so smart, world class and all that. They do not even have the administrative acumen to manage immigration into the country. Compare their scheme of immigration with any other country, say Brunei, the Gulf States, UK, US, Australia. None of these countries which are so much bigger than Singapore take in two million foreign people in 5 years. Why are they so stupid?
Because it is more advantageous for their personal welfare to stop thinking.Because their exceedingly high ministerial pay stops them from thinking for themselves. To think at all would start them on the path to good governance and that would be disastrous for their career with LKY.If we had all 80 odd parliamentarians thinking and planning for Singapore, we wont have to put up with the flooding of foreigners. The parliamentarians are yes men and sycophants of the first rank. For almost all of them, their present job is godsend. If they were to work anywhere else, they will not be able to get one twentieth of their present salary. So their thinking brains make a cost benefit study and decide one and all that it is better to hold on to the golden goose than to be a hero or heroine and use their questioning mind and start asking. So we have all 80 brains collapsing into the one brain, who though aged still runs the show. I hope something intervenes before the Nation is sacrificed to LKY.
Those who complain about the PAP and wish for their downfall must wake up to the reality that out of the 80+ members in parliament, only 6? are opposition members i.e. PAP is still unbeatable! Those who think the PAP should change or re-invent themselves, should think again. Why should they change when the situation is still working for them? The PAP is still playing with their deck of cards.
If everyone (even the PAP) knows that excessive immigrants are bad, why are they still carrying on with these policies? The PAP/LKY is laying their groundwork of support in the polls into the infinite future. Currently, it is said that 35% of the population are immigrants. Who do you think these people will eventually vote for? Your guess is right – the PAP (their creator and patron as Singaporeans). This tendency is reinforced when the anti-immigrant fervour continues and increases. The PAP will not stop until the transplanted population becomes an irreversible majority at the polls for them. PAP worship will contnue into perpetuity and LKY will die peacefully knowing worship for him and his legacy will continue irrevocably into the future. He knows this is cynical but I bet you he is thinking – so what can you do about it? Kiam kee Lai hoa lah!
Adult "foreign talent' do not necessarily help the birth rate unless we are talking about FT couples with at least 2.1 kids & don't have elderly or other dependents tagging along with them. How can you be sure these adult FT reproduce themselves and more (min 2.1 kids)? You can only block those or reduce those with less than min. 2.1 kids and penalise them if they try to bring in elderly or other dependents.
A better solution is to encourage birth tourism & just handout SG passports to newborns. That will improve the birth rate drastically. Birth rate is not directly linked to adult FT, because we are talkiing about babies. If we really want more babies, birth tourism is the simplest solution that USA, Canada & Brazil use. The babies may return to their parents' home countries for their childhood but at some time they may want to make a contribution to SG. If worried about the numbers, can first have a pilot scheme open to newborn of parents who are both non-ASEAN citizens and charge a high application fee for the new borne's passport. The scheme can be adjusted to let it more newborne or less depending on the number of applicants each year. A Singapore summer camp can be organised for these Singaporean kids so that they develop ties with Singapore if they chose not to study here.
As for adult FT, we can look at the Japanese, or even western countries which all control immigration to protect jobs. This is more logical. Salaries and wages will then go up for individuals, but the trade off is higher business costs for private companies. Meanwhile, if we must bring in some FT, we have to ensure they are young, as young as possible and stop bringing in those over 40 years old, irrespective of how talented they are. Otherwise, Singapore will still age in spite of FT.
As for NS, I think there could be a new tax on all those (FT included) who do not serve NS. Correspondingly, more tax breaks can be given to those who served NS.
Meanwhile LKY and other former and current leaders could ride the MRT trains and buses at peak hours and see what they are like.
Sg_loyal
0 mins ago
Below is a post by a FT (sour grapes) on EP in www. Transitioning.org
He/she says that the FT circles, definitely himself/herself treats Sg as a massive toilet. So he is shiiting all over Sg until he is ready to migrate to a better country.
I do not know why our country has to take all this insult from FT who disrespect our country and people and yet thinks that they are dispensable and our government still loves them so much that even though they can shit on us (country, people) because they are talented FT
Have a read
“To To Sour Grapes. Yeah sure. The ‘systems’ that your government uses is very the sophisticated one. So sophisticated that a limping man can break out of a maximum security facility in the middle of the day during a toilet break and then make his way to the northern coast of the country and thereafter use an improvised float to swim to JB. Ever heard of the saying “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”? I can assure you this renounce-Sg-citizenship-then-come-back-on-EP route has been successfully achieved by many. The form that you sign when you renounce Sg citizenship merely requires that you acknowledge that you may not be guaranteed any immigration pass to live and work in SG once your declaration of renunciation is registered. The reality, however, is that the ICA treats you just like any other foreigner meaning if you satisfy the criteria to be granted an EP, then they will give it to you.
It is that simple, really. The only issue is if I want to take up PR again, then I will need to refund the CPF that I have taken out with interest. But that’s alright as I am quite happy to just be on an EP as I do not plan to be here in the long run. Do you know that in FT circles, we liken your country to a toilet? You just go in there to do your business, and then you leave quickly. You don’t stay in there any longer than you need to. Think and reflect upon it.”