Where are the reasons for parenthood?: Addressing Singapore’s Fertility Crisis.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are the writer’s own and are not representative of MAJU’s views. While we make every effort to ensure that the information shared is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or corrections of errors.

Synopsis: 

Government policy can address the structural reasons against parenthood, but cannot supply the reasons for having children, since that desire is now self-authored, not socially imposed. Singaporeans must personally engage with the question 'Why become a parent?', rather than wait for parenthood's obstacles to be cleared. The government's role, then, is to create conditions for serious deliberation, not instruct Singaporeans.

Credits to Unsplash: Van Tien Le

As of 2025, Singapore’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is 0.87. Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong illustrated what this means in Parliament: at a TFR of 0.87, every 100 residents today would produce just 44 children and 19 grandchildren. This is why Singapore’s fertility crisis is, in Mr Gan’s own words, an “existential challenge”. He further warned that, without intervention, Singapore's citizen population is projected to begin shrinking by the early 2040s. 

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah, who spearheads the Marriage and Parenthood (M&P) Reset Workgroup, mentioned in a speech that the shifting priorities of Singaporeans away from marriage and parenthood are caused by “changing notions of what constitutes success, and what it means to lead a good or meaningful life.” Consequently, the M&P Reset Workgroup aims to address this issue through (1) strengthening tangible forms of support for parents to make the parenthood experience easier, and (2) taking on the more daunting work of reshaping beliefs and attitudes. Ms Indranee continues that “[A] big part of this is working with employers and the community to cultivate more positive mindsets around marriage and parenthood.” These two approaches can be viewed as solving different aspects of the fertility crisis: (1) addressing the reasons against parenthood, and (2) creating the reasons for parenthood. In this Op-Ed, I share the extent to which the Government can supply Singaporeans with the reasons for parenthood and where these reasons can be found. 

The reasons against parenthood 

Singapore’s declining fertility rate has been attributed to a wide range of factors. Beyond the usual suspects—the rising cost of living and unsupportive workplace cultures—other significant contributors include concerns about the availability and adequacy of infant and childcare support, mounting pressures surrounding children's education, and worrisome dynamics in gender relations. Together, these factors appear to be compounding Singaporeans’ growing reluctance towards starting families. 

A lot of these reasons are tangible and structural reasons that can be addressed by providing monetary incentives, changing workplace policies, and reforming the education system, amongst other strategies. While some of these solutions appear extremely daunting and long-term, their tangibility implies that they can be addressed through sustained efforts by the Government through new laws, new policies, and new subsidies. 

However, an assumption is sneaked in, which is that once these obstacles are overcome, people will naturally want children again. This assumes that the desire for parenthood already exists beneath the structural pressures, waiting to resurface once the pressures alleviate. Yet, it is not obvious that substantial monetary incentives or work-life balance will restore people’s desire for parenthood. This is likely why Ms Indranee found it necessary to emphasise the need for reshaping beliefs and attitudes, and not just simply clearing obstacles. 

The reasons for parenthood 

Ms Indranee rightfully claims that changing notions around what constitutes the good life have resulted in the diminished importance of marriage and parenthood. As she notes, many young Singaporeans are still open to marriage and having children. However, this desire now has to compete against other aspirations—career, travel, and personal growth. With a good education and exposure to a greater diversity of life experiences, people now see the good life as something that is to be defined by themselves rather than inherited. And in a time-scarce society like Singapore, parenthood is readily superseded by other life pursuits. 

One might believe that this corroborates the idea that simply removing obstacles will reveal people’s natural desire to have children. However, the obstacle is not structural, like the cost of living or workplace culture. It is the competing pull of other legitimate and fruitful lives. Thus, the Government cannot resolve such an issue through policy or incentives since it cannot decide for people that parenthood is the more fruitful path. The problem, then, is that for many Singaporeans, the personal case for parenthood still isn’t strong enough to outweigh other life paths. 

Young people are encouraged to take authorship of their lives in education and work, but family formation is the one domain where the script has not loosened, which puts parenthood at odds with the life one is authoring. And a conflict of that kind does not respond to subsidies the way behaviour around cost does. This was not always a question one answered for oneself. In Imperial China, having an heir was not a matter of personal choice but a moral obligation. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the duty to continue the patriline was even codified in law, and a couple without sons could turn to adoption, concubinage, and other customs to keep a family line from dying out. In the past, parenthood was something socially imposed onto people. 

Now, this external compulsion is gone, and Singaporeans' reasons for parenthood are theirs to find. This is why the Government’s role is ultimately limited: it cannot engineer the desire or reason for parenthood, only remove the structural obstacles to those desires. Thus, whether that desire strengthens again may depend less on policy than on whether individuals come to see parenthood as compatible with, rather than opposed to, the good life. 

I would add that the reasons to have children should remain deeply personal, and reflect a genuine commitment to parenthood, rather than a decision made simply because the reasons against parenthood have been cleared away by the Government. Of course, this might concern the Government since it suggests that they would have little sway over individual Singaporeans and their decision to become parents. Yet, it is not my claim that becoming a parent is independent of social forces, but that social forces can only inform an individual’s pursuit of the answer to the question: “Why should I become a parent”? That being said, what we actually need is a social environment that allows individuals to actively engage with the question, rather than treat parenthood as naturally desirable or a foolish decision. 

A truly family-friendly environment?

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said, during a session of the Singapore Press Club’s Eminent Speaker Series on 8 June 2026, that Singapore’s approach to the fertility crisis is to create a family-friendly environment. He continued, “At the end of the day after doing that, I may not get more babies, but it's still worth doing.” While this shows the Government’s intention not to infringe on people’s personal reasons, the definition of a family-friendly environment can be broadened to include not just reducing people’s reasons against parenthood. Mr Wong gave the example of addressing the concerns of young parents around education, childcare and housing. Instead, a more family-friendly environment would also help people see the decision of parenthood as serious, processual, and dialogical. 

Parenthood is increasingly framed as a decision to be resolved through rational cost-benefit deliberation, rather than a question one discovers a personal answer to. That framing implies that being “family-friendly” is a matter of cheaper childcare, longer leave, and larger cash incentives. However, I argue that becoming a parent should be a decision that unfolds through lived experience and through ongoing encounters with the question “Why should I become a parent?” Hence, a family-friendly environment should be an environment friendly to the conversations, relationships, and encounters in which the question actually gets worked out. 

One example of this “unfriendliness” is our conception of parenthood as a transformative experience, where, according to L.A. Paul, you cannot know what parenthood is like, or what its value to you is, until you are already inside it. There might be evidence to support this view: Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies Dr Kalpana Vignehsa, who researches families and parenthood in Singapore, observes that it is easier to encourage parents who have navigated the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting to expand their family than to convince those without children to take the leap. This can be read as evidence that parenthood is genuinely transformative. But this observation is also consistent with a different explanation, that our social environment has taught us to see parenthood as transformative. The upshot of conceiving parenthood as transformative is that parenthood is now framed as ‘all-or-nothing’: either keep your old values and refuse parenthood, or fully surrender to the new, possibly socially imposed values of parenthood. This cuts people off from the resources (past convictions or prior identity) that might help them resist oppressive roles once inside the experience. For example, mothers might be socially expected to wholly sacrifice themselves for their children, at the cost of their own well-being and fulfillment. This offers one possible explanation why there is reluctance for Singaporeans to “transform” themselves into mothers: becoming a mother means leaving behind all of one’s other ambitions and pursuits permanently. Individually, the trade-off is too large, and if the rewards of motherhood do not match up, there is simply no good reason to do so. 

But as I said earlier, just removing the reasons against parenthood will not automatically stop people from seeing parenthood as the ultimate sacrifice. Instead, the solution is for individuals to rigorously explore the makeup of their core identity, values, and aspirations, and what being a parent can contribute to that identity. And this means staying open to the possibility of parenthood rather than settling the matter too early. 

This openness can be especially hard for the people it matters most to: couples in relationships. After all, choosing to become a parent is a difficult decision that requires both partners to agree upon. While this might add unwanted pressure to a relationship, it is ultimately more oppressive to be forced to make a premature decision. To be sure, our biology might impose a deadline on this decision, but this suggests that this undertaking needs to start earlier and with more seriousness and not be foreclosed prematurely for the sake of resolution. This is how one approaches the question “Why should I become a parent?” with more sincerity and less scepticism or coercion. 

When the M&P Reset Workgroup states that it hopes to take on the more daunting work of reshaping beliefs and attitudes towards starting a family, I believe that the primary work here is not to encourage people to become parents. Instead, I hope the Government can create the conditions for people to encounter the question “Why should I become a parent?” seriously. On the Government’s part, more social spaces where topics around parenthood can be openly shared and communicated can be created. Parenthood, while a personal journey, does not mean one cannot learn from the journeys of others. Witnessing up close the experiences of parenthood in others can aid our imagination of what parenthood would look like for ourselves. Programmes like the marriage mentoring programme Journey With You (JoY) could be used to help couples make more informed decisions about parenthood through interactions with more experienced couples. Overall, more and better conversations about parenthood and witnessing concrete manifestations of parenthood in others can help us make more informed decisions. 

Ultimately, Singaporeans have to realise that deciding whether to become a parent is an ongoing conversation with oneself. It is no simple decision, so let us treat it with the gravity that it commands while remaining respectful of everyone’s decision. To reiterate PM Wong, “I may not get more babies, but it’s still worth doing.” 

About the author:

Chuang Zhe Quan is a PhD student in Chinese Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. His research asks how one might live a good life, and how to live well alongside others. In his free time, he has found that making pizza serves both ends.