Singaporeans prefer having just one child, rather than none: Research

Surprising shift away from two-child norm could dent efforts to raise birth rate

- Theresa Tan

A new study has found that Singaporeans prefer having one child to not having any.

However, they do not prefer having two or more children over just one child - if other areas of family life they value are not fulfilled, said Professor Jean Yeung, the study's principal investigator for Singapore, which was one of eight countries involved in the study.

More than 22,000 people in eight countries were polled online about their family ideals in an era of unprecedented fertility decline in developed countries.

The countries are Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Italy, Spain, Norway, the United States and urban China, which refers to Chinese cities. Some 3,500 people in Singapore, including both married people and singles, were interviewed from December 2021 to February 2022.

Singaporeans' preference for one child is similar to how respondents across the other seven countries felt, said Prof Yeung, the director of social sciences at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences.

This preference is surprising, as past research has shown that there is a two-child norm in Singapore, she said. Her co-principal investigator in Singapore is Dr Senhu Wang, an assistant professor in the National University of Singapore (NUS) sociology department. Ten researchers from various countries were involved in the study.