“Is Singapore’s Birth Rate Too Low?” – Prof Lutz captures Singapore’s zeitgeist

February 15, 2013

On Wednesday 13th February all of the local media’s eyes were on Prof Wolfgang Lutz, demographer and Founding Director of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital. Prof Lutz’s was giving a seminar in FASS, hosted by the Department of Sociology, where he discussed Singapore’s fertility rate, a topic which has been widely debated in the wake of the Singapore Government’s White Paper on Population.

Prof Lutz had read the recent published white paper and so was able to provide his opinions on Singapore’s projected Total Fertility Rate in relation to issues of population heterogeneity, economic productivity, national strength, global climate change, migration, and increasing life expectancy. Prof Lutz concluded that a fertility level somewhat below replacement level might be optimal for a highly-educated modern society such as Singapore.

This proposition and interviews with Prof Lutz were reported via the following media:
Channel News Asia, Channel 5 News, Channel 8 News, Channel U News, Suria News 938Live, The Straits TImes (see article below), The Business Times, TODAY, My Paper, Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian and Razor TV.

Prof Lutz will also be speaking on Monday 18th February to deliver the NUSS Professorship Public Lecture – “Singapore: A Human Capital Success Story”.