The Business Times
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Baby blues meet silver tsunami

There’s a dire need to tackle head-on the elephant in the room – the looming problem of a diminishing working population

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    • With a quarter of Singapore’s population estimated to be 65 years and over by 2030, the smaller number of working-age people may be left to pick up an increasingly inflated dependency tab.
    • With a quarter of Singapore’s population estimated to be 65 years and over by 2030, the smaller number of working-age people may be left to pick up an increasingly inflated dependency tab. PHOTO: AFP

    David Sandison

    Published Fri, Feb 16, 2024 · 05:00 AM

    I PENNED an article in 2006 on the seemingly unheeded demographic emergency that Singapore was facing even then (“Happy retirement, anyone?”, BT, Feb 15, 2006).

    Having been sent off into the desert by my peers and colleagues as some sort of population loon to contemplate my ignorance and forget about the issue for a while, I thought I would take a 20th anniversary check-in to see how things were going.

    My curiosity had been piqued by an article on Singapore’s fertility rate, which seems to have taken another tumble. (It was the term “post-partum confinement services” that caught my eye, which I imagined was a morning in jail after a big night out.)

    DemographicsSingaporeCPFRetirement

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