Friday August 13, 2010
Singapore Launches ‘Dating Campaign’ To Counter Low Birth Rate
By Thaddeus M. Baklilnski
SINGAPORE, August 13, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The government of Singapore announced that it has asked for tenders from communications agencies to produce a television commercial to “promote dating and come up with a ‘unique dating concept’ to get singles to interact” in a bid to deal with the city-state’s low birth and marriage rates.
The Singapore Straits Times reports that the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) issued the tender “to engage a communications agency to conceptualize, plan and implement a public communications campaign to promote dating.”
Young singles aged 20 to 35 are the target group for the campaign, the latest in the government’s efforts to counteract the current birth rate of 1.23 children born per woman, and the reluctance of young people to marry.
According to government statistics, Singapore’s marriage rate was 6.6 marriages per 1,000 residents in 2009, down from 7.8 in 1999.
In February, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong encouraged couples to have more children in spite of the superstition that children born in 2010, the Chinese zodiac Year of the Tiger, are failures in their personal and professional lives and are prone to depression.
Singapore’s population of about five million has stagnated, with the government statistics agency reporting a population growth rate in 2009 of only 1.1 percent among Singapore citizens and permanent residents.
To offset this the government encourages foreign immigration. Large numbers of immigrants, totaling about one-fifth of all residents, have kept Singapore’s population from declining.
See related LSN article:
Taiwan Considers Cash for Births as Fertility Rate Dips to World’s Lowest
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040807.htmlTo Counter Low Birth Rate