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In 1972, Singapore's Health Minister stood in parliament and called having a fourth child an anti-social act. Newspapers ran it on their front pages.
Then came the poster. Two girls under one umbrella, sharing one apple. "Girl or Boy, Two is Enough." It was on buses, in hospitals, in primary schools, on television.
They stripped income tax relief from any fourth child. Hospital delivery fees went up on a sliding scale punishing each additional birth. If you refused to stop having kids, your family dropped in the public housing queue. Nurses at Kandang Kerbau Hospital chided women carrying a third child as if they'd committed a crime.
It worked. By 1985 the fertility rate hit 1.62, well below replacement. By 1986, 1.44. So in 1987, the government reversed everything. The new slogan: "Have Three or More If You Can Afford It." By 1989, they were offering a S$20,000 tax rebate for a fourth child. The same fourth child the Health Minister had called an anti-social act.
The fertility rate did not recover. It kept falling. Through decades of subsidies, matchmaking campaigns, speed-dating events on the Singapore Flyer at S$140 a couple. The 2025 budget added S$13,000 cash gifts for a third child and expanded parental leave. The fertility rate hit a record low of 0.87.
Singapore didn't run out of money for babies. It ran out of motivation. The poster a child saw a thousand times at age eight was still running the decision at age forty. The mindset outlived every incentive they attached to it.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Nnemu7fDx/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Then came the poster. Two girls under one umbrella, sharing one apple. "Girl or Boy, Two is Enough." It was on buses, in hospitals, in primary schools, on television.
They stripped income tax relief from any fourth child. Hospital delivery fees went up on a sliding scale punishing each additional birth. If you refused to stop having kids, your family dropped in the public housing queue. Nurses at Kandang Kerbau Hospital chided women carrying a third child as if they'd committed a crime.
It worked. By 1985 the fertility rate hit 1.62, well below replacement. By 1986, 1.44. So in 1987, the government reversed everything. The new slogan: "Have Three or More If You Can Afford It." By 1989, they were offering a S$20,000 tax rebate for a fourth child. The same fourth child the Health Minister had called an anti-social act.
The fertility rate did not recover. It kept falling. Through decades of subsidies, matchmaking campaigns, speed-dating events on the Singapore Flyer at S$140 a couple. The 2025 budget added S$13,000 cash gifts for a third child and expanded parental leave. The fertility rate hit a record low of 0.87.
Singapore didn't run out of money for babies. It ran out of motivation. The poster a child saw a thousand times at age eight was still running the decision at age forty. The mindset outlived every incentive they attached to it.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Nnemu7fDx/?mibextid=wwXIfr
