August 3, 2021

In ‘More non-citizen workers = Fewer local babies?’ (The Straits Times, 2020), Dr Kelvin Seah Kah Cheng (NUS Department of Economics) addresses questions about how immigration may be affecting the fertility of Singaporeans.

In Singapore, the term ‘non-citizens’ refers to Permanent Residents and other foreigners who are working, studying, or living in Singapore,   including work permit and work pass holders and excluding tourists and short-term visitors. The number of non-citizens in Singapore grew from 1.85 million in 2010 to 2.16 million in 2020 – or  from 36.4 percent to 38 percent of the population.

At the same time, resident women generally had fewer children last year than in 2010. However, even though there is an inverse relationship between the number of non-citizens and the fertility rate, this does not mean that higher immigration necessarily was the cause of lower fertility, as the lower fertility rates could very well be caused by other factors. For example, an increase in wages in the economy would increase the opportunity cost of raising a child since raising a child would take up time and effort that could be spent working. The prospect of attaining higher wages would also make employment in Singapore more attractive to foreigners. This would thus lower fertility rates and increase immigration at the same time.

However, there has also been research theorizing that a fall in fertility could partly be due to higher immigration rates. In the United States and Spain, greater immigration led to higher housing prices and rents. Given that housing is generally viewed to be a necessity to raise a child, higher housing prices and rents may drive people to postpone childbearing or reduce the number of children to have. Additionally, greater immigration could lead to increased perceptions of job security, since migrants could be viewed as competitors in the labour market by locals who possess similar skill sets to migrants. Since the decision to raise a child is typically highly influenced by one’s state of employment and income security, feelings of job security could potentially result in lower fertility among certain groups of locals.

Concurrently, the opposite remains true. Immigration, when involving low-skilled workers such as foreign domestic workers, could result in higher fertility. With the help of domestic workers to relieve some of the burden of raising a child, the opportunity cost of raising a child would be reduced, as women would be able to continue working while raising their children. As such, though immigration is likely to have an impact on fertility, the direction in which it affects fertility is less certain, since it could go both ways.

Because there is a lack of research on whether immigration and local fertility are actually related, policymakers may not be able to make optimal decisions regarding immigration policies as they would not have all the information needed to properly analyse the situation at hand. Therefore, Dr Seah suggests that more work needs to be done to understand how immigration may be affecting the fertility of locals here and in the rest of the world.

Read the article here.