Singapore's declining birth rate has been a recurring headline for many years now, sparking concern about the nation’s demographic and economic future. Despite a host of measures, including baby bonuses and parental leave schemes, the fertility rate for Singapore has continued to fall well below the replacement rate of 2.1, reaching a low of 1.05 in 2022, and then dropping further to 0.97 in 2023.

Alongside a rapidly ageing population, policymakers and researchers have been ramping up efforts to address these demographic challenges for Singapore through more innovative solutions, including Flexible Work Arrangements or FWAs which has been studied from the angle of improving mental health, work-life balance, economic productivity and even sustainability, and most recently, its potential to impact birth rates.

FWAs come in different forms and degrees of flexibility – such as varying workloads or work locations – but which of these arrangements can move the needle in a young adult’s decision to have children?

Investigating the link between FWAs and plans to have children was the focus of a recent study led by Assistant Professor Senhu Wang from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. The researchers found that FWA scenarios could significantly increase young, unmarried working Singaporeans’ fertility intentions, described as a plan of action to pursue childbirth in the next five years. The study is the first in the world to examine how FWAs impact fertility intentions specifically among unmarried adults.

Asst Prof Wang said, “While current research suggests that the prevalence of an over-work norm may be a crucial reason for the low fertility rate, there is little research on the effects of FWAs on fertility. This research aims to gain a better understanding of whether and how FWAs affect fertility intention in Singapore, a country with one of the lowest fertility rates and longest working hours in the world.

“Most importantly, we extend the attention to an important and under-studied population who are at reproductive ages and subject to FWAs policy changes directly – the unmarried population that has already accounted for over half of the Singapore population aged 20 to 39 in 2022 when the study was conducted,” he added.

The results of the study was published in a paper titled “Flexible Working Arrangements and Fertility Intentions: A Survey Experiment in Singapore” in November 2024.

Investigating the impact of FWAs on fertility intentions  

A survey examined the five-year fertility plans of 1,092 young and unmarried working Singaporeans aged between 25 to 39 years of age. These young adults hail from a wide variety of industries including workers in professional occupations such as legislators, senior officials and managers, and from non-professional occupations such as technicians, clerical support workers, craftsmen, trades workers and cleaners.

Participants were divided into different groups. Three treatment groups were given hypothetical scenarios of government FWAs policies – flexibility in workload through reduced work hours, flexibility in work schedules, and flexibility in workplaces, while the fourth – a control group, was given a hypothetical scenario of no near-future change in existing work environment policies. All four groups were then asked whether they plan to have a child within the next five years.

Respondents were also asked the extent to which anticipated work-family conflict can mediate the relationship between FWAs and fertility intentions. The impact of FWAs on fertility intentions on both men and women, and between people in professional and non-professional occupations, were also examined.

Between 5 per cent and 17 per cent of respondents from the treatment groups who were given the option of hypothetical FWA policies indicated that they were either definitely or probably not likely to have children, compared to around 12 per cent and 22 per cent of respondents in the control group who said they would definitely or probably not have children in the next five years.

In addition, the results of the statistical analysis showed that treatment groups were more inclined towards marriage compared to the control group, although the effect was less pronounced for those in the “flexible schedule” group. The researchers also anticipated lower work-family conflict incidences among treatment groups.

The study also found different FWAs exacted varying impacts on the respondents’ plans to have children, with the impact on fertility intentions less pronounced in the “flexible work schedule” group.

Elaborating on the details, the paper’s second author, Professor Hao Dong from Peking University, said, “Based on our analysis, we found gendered differences to FWAs with all three types of FWAs having significant effects on women’s fertility intention, whereas only reduced working hours were found to significantly increase men’s fertility intention.”

The different gendered reactions could be attributed to the fact that working mothers continue to bear a disproportionate share of childcare and domestic responsibilities, while experiencing greater opportunity cost, in terms of labour earnings and career development than men. As such, access to FWAs would allow women to exercise higher levels of work control and hence be more likely to have children.

As for why men’s fertility intention increased only with the FWA of reduced working hours, Prof Dong noted that previous research had indicated that while women use FWAs for household related purposes to maintain work-family balance, men tend to use flexible working mainly for performance-enhancing purposes and therefore work longer hours.

The effects of FWAs are also particularly pronounced among men and women working in professional occupations, echoing existing research that emphasises the high fertility costs in professional occupations. The high fertility costs are linked to a strong culture of overwork and intensive parenting which may lower fertility intention by increasing work-family conflict as employees are expected to work long hours and devote their time entirely to the job without interruptions from other non-work demands.

These findings, Prof Dong noted, are consistent with the research literature that highlights overwork and work-family conflict as an institutional constraint preventing young people from developing intentions to have children, let alone achieving these intentions.

Government policies that support employees’ rights to FWAs a potential way to boost low fertility rates

Singapore has been pushing for employers to consider suitable flexible work arrangements to enhance birth rates, and the recent roll-out of the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests (TG-FWAR) could be a game changer.

Asst Prof Wang said, “Our study demonstrates that support of employees’ access to FWAs in the form of government policies can help better accommodate conflicting responsibilities from work and family domains, especially for women and those working in professional and managerial occupations, by enabling them to continue their career after childbirth and promoting a more equitable division of labour. As intention predicts behaviour, we can expect that a more family-friendly working environment alongside other welfare policies could potentially improve the actual fertility rate in the long-term.”

The study has its limitations. First, while fertility intention is highly related to fertility behaviour, both are not equivalent. Secondly, a five-year span of fertility intention may be too long for young people and this measure cannot distinguish between those who intend to remain childless and those who are simply planning to defer childbirth later in life.

These limitations, Asst Prof Wang stressed, do not overshadow the study’s main contribution. He said, “Our study provides a way forward to tackle low fertility rates in developed countries and contributes to our nuanced understanding of how individuals from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds navigate the intersection of work flexibility and family planning. This holds important implications for understanding how family behaviour may be planned in the future of work.”

Singapore's newly rolled out FWA Guidelines, he added, are likely to have a significant effect on the workforce and economy. By standardising FWAs, the guidelines can help reduce stigma around flexible working, potentially increasing job satisfaction and productivity. This, in turn, could lead to improved economic outcomes by retaining talent and reducing turnover rates, which is crucial for sustaining Singapore's workforce in the face of demographic changes.

Organisations could consider tailoring FWAs to fit the specific needs and contexts of their employees. He shared, “This includes providing various options like telecommuting, flexi-time, and compressed workweeks, while ensuring that these policies are inclusive and equitably accessible to all employees.”

Moving forward, Asst Prof Wang plans to explore the long-term impacts of flexible working across cultural contexts and demographic groups, particularly the sustainability of FWAs and their effects on work-life balance over time.