Immigrants will exert heavy burden on limited public
resources in Singapore 20 years down the road
OPINION - TR
During a polytechnic forum in September last year, a student
asked Dr Vivian point-blank in his face why the government is
allowing foreigners to compete with Singaporeans for job.
The feisty Dr Vivian shot back immediately:
“Would Singaporeans be willing to be taxed heavily to
support the country’s ageing population in 20 years’ time? This
would be the case if Singapore did not bring in foreign
talent.”
Dr Vivian’s conjecture will only hold true if the immigrants
have a higher birth rate than native Singaporeans and if they
consume less public resources than them.
Both scenarios are unlikely to happen.
In 2003, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced his most
ambitious plan to increase Singapore’s population to 6.5 million
people by 2030.
(To put things in perspective, New Zealand, which is more
than 370 times the size of Singapore has a population of only 4.3
million people.)
All of sudden without warning, the floodgates were flung open
without any proper screening and Singapore was swarmed by
foreigners who now make up 36 percent of Singapore’s
population.
A population will only grow if its total fertility rate exceeds
the minimum replacement rate of 2.1 which means that each woman
should have two children on average.
Though the inflow of immigrants will increase Singapore’s
population in the short-term, it will not boost its birth rate
unless the newcomers and their descendents have more children than
the locals.
The key reason behind Singaporeans not wanting to have more
children is economic, due to a combination of five factors:
unstable job, stagnant wages, increased cost of living,
sky-rocketing HDB prices and increased stress.
Unless the new citizens live in the offshore islands or in
ghettos, they are likely to be subjected to the same conditions as
Singaporeans.
Not all immigrants are as rich as Jet Li. In fact, most of them
are like middle-class Singaporeans living in HDB flats.
Will they be able to afford to have more children than
Singaporeans?
It is highly improbable that the new immigrants will bear two or
more children in Singapore given the same constraints in financial
resources.
Their children will have a fertility rate closer to the national
average of 1.2 rather than 2.1.
At the end of the day, Singapore’s fertility rate will not
increase by much so long the limiting factors remain in place.
It is myopic of the PAP to mass import foreigners into Singapore
at such an alarming rate now without realizing that they are only
going to create another set of problems.
Though foreigners may help to support our aging population right
now and in the near future, they will also grow old themselves in
20 to 30 years’ time. Who will come and support them then?
According to figures from the Home Affairs Ministry, the number
of new citizens averages around 20,000 between the years 2007 –
2009.
Assuming it remains the same for the next twenty years, we will
have an additional 400,000 new citizens.
The new citizens in their 40s now will be in their 60s and those
in their 30s now will be in their 50s in twenty years’ time.
Some of them may fell ill along the way and become unfit to
work. Others may succumb to sudden heart attacks or strokes and a
rising number will be afflicted with chronic diseases like
hypertension, diabetes mellitus and hyperlipidaemia.
Will the increased taxes paid by these immigrants help to offset
the expected increase in public healthcare costs?
Singapore has a progressive tax system in which the top earners
may the full income tax and the lowest income group pay no taxes at
all.
No statistics are available on the income status of the new
citizens though it is likely that they will mirror that of
Singaporeans with about 20 – 30 percent in the lower income group
and 40 – 60 percent in the middle-income group.
Even now, our public healthcare system is being stretched to its
limits with chronic over-crowding at polyclinics and hospitals
especially Tan Tock Seng Hospital, long waits for specialist
appointments and shortage of doctors and nurses due to high
turnover rates.
Though no official figures are available, anecdotal evidence on
the ground suggest that almost 90 percent of Singapore-trained
doctors will leave for the private sector once their 5-year bond
with MOH ended if they are not undergoing further training to be
specialists and more than half the nurses will leave or change
professions each year.
To plug the gaps in manpower, MOH has resorted to recruiting
more foreign doctors and nurses overseas without exploring ways of
retaining their services within the public healthcare system.
Can our healthcare professionals cope with the increased demand
on their services fueled by immigration?
Increasing the population blindly via immigration without any
proper planning is a stop-gap measure which does not address
the underlying causes of Singapore’s decline birth rates.
Ultimately, a nation’s population will only grow from natural
births and not from import of foreigners elsewhere.
The PAP should tackle the problem right at its roots by
improving the standards of living among ordinary Singaporeans so
that they will be inclined to bear more children instead of taking
an easy shortcut by turning to foreigners.
In fact, the relentless influx of foreigners may
have contributed to the declining birth rates of Singaporeans
as their increasing numbers has depressed the wages and increased
the cost of living for Singaporeans, especially that of HDB flats –
the very reasons why Singaporeans are not having children.
Unlike other developed countries, education and healthcare are
not free in Singapore.
It costs alot to bring up a child and to support him/her all the
way till university in Singapore.
If the PAP wants to encourage Singaporeans to have more
children, it should first control the prices of HDB flats and
reduce them to a more realistic and sustainable level.
The present prices are way too high for ordinary Singaporeans
earning a median monthly income of around $2,600.
After deducting the mortgage loans for their flats and living
expenses, a household will have little left for the children.
Not only will the continued inflow of immigrants not improve
Singapore’s birth rates, it will compound the problem and create
new ones such as escalating social tension and conflict.
What is Singapore’s ideal population? How many immigrants do we
need? What is a reasonable birth rate to aim for?
It is time we realize that being a developed economy like the
United States and Europe now, we can no longer grow at
breath-taking speed like in the past.
The use of cheap foreign workers to keep our labor costs down
and GDP growth high is no longer a viable option.
We have to accept the fact our population is aging and make
contingency plans to tackle the “Silver Tsunami” which will hit us
20 years from now.
Bringing in middle-aged immigrants into Singapore is tantamount
to adding more senior citizens into our population later on.
We need a more directed, comprehensive and holistic approach to
our current immigration policies instead of increasing the
population blindly via mass importing of foreigners from
elsewhere.
