How tech innovation can address falling fertility, rising dependency
Technology can counterbalance the economic consequences of these demographic changes
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SINGAPORE’S resident total fertility rate fell to a new low of 0.87 in 2025, compared with 1.24 in 2015, and 0.97 in 2024. Even with immigration, Singapore’s citizen population has been slowing over the past decade, growing just 0.7 per cent in 2025, and is projected to start shrinking by the early 2040s if there are no new interventions.
Singapore is not alone in this trajectory. By 2050, the world’s leading economies are all projected to experience a significant increase in the elderly dependency ratio – or the population over 65 to the population aged 15 to 65 – regardless of whether their total populations increase or decrease.
Ageing economies face a stark choice: either do nothing and decline in population and economic activity, or invest in innovation and technological transformation and continue to grow.
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