High Gini coefficient = low fertility rate?

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Could a major reason for Singapore’s appallingly low Total Fertility Rate(TFR) be the appallingly high GINI Coefficient? I’m not referring to the struggles of the lower income in trying to raise children, though that must definitely be another major factor. I’m referring to something else altogether: People tend to marry amongst their own social class, and when the GINI coefficient is so high, the number of people within the social class you can access, becomes much smaller. So it’s harder to find partners, more challenging to marry, and so there is less opportunity to have babies.

Anecdotally, many of my friends in Singapore are very unwilling to marry and start families with another person whose income is way below theirs. Most people don’t mind if it’s maybe, 10% different, but if you earn 5x more than your date, and your date’s prospects aren’t likely to change, chances are you’re not going consider that date as a potential spouse.

On the other hand, I’ve heard from friends in European countries, that there are very little raised eyebrows or even personal consideration, when a university lecturer marries a bus driver.

....

In Singapore, it’s not that married people are having too few children. It’s that too few people are getting married!

...Amongst 40-49 year old women who have ever been married, the average number of children they had was a fairly healthy 2.08 (2.1 is the ideal replacement rate). Meaning that a good proportion of married couples are have 1 -3 children by the time the wife hits menopause. Only a mere 8.6% of 40-49yr old married women are childless. On the other hand, when you include all women in the average, the TFR is only 1.2. Marriage rates have fallen over the last 10 years, from about 46-48 per 1000, to 35-38 per 1000. 1 in 5 females are single in their late 30s. 1 in 4 males are single in their late 30s.

So why aren’t Singaporeans getting married?!

True, cultural norms are shifting, and people want to marry later. But I’m sure many of us also know friends and relatives who are/have been actively trying to find a partner, but finding great difficulty. So many dating agencies have been popping up. So what’s going on?

One clue we have is this :

2x more university females 35-39yrs are single, compared to their below-secondary school counterparts. In contrast, 1.5x more below-secondary school males 35-39yrs are single. (The difference in magnitude, I believe, is due to Vietnamese & Chinese matchmaking agencies available for the men). That it is socially more acceptable for women to marry up, is not a new observation. What’s worth pondering about, is the effect that the GINI has on this phenomenon.

In Singapore, social class is not just about your education level, though that is a very close proxy indicator because of our education and job hiring practices. Income and assets, I speculate, is arguably, an equally important factor in determining your social class. A college dropout who works in the support office is viewed very differently from the college dropout who starts up a billion-dollar company. When the income between the different social strata of society gets wider – as implied by a rising GINI, the number of people who earn +/- 10% of your income tend to be smaller. And we all know dating is a numbers game.

Before we start slamming Singaporeans for being class conscious and materialistic, I think it’s worth pausing for a moment and asking ourselves (& friends) why it matters at all. On a very practical level, Singapore’s high standard of living means that the higher your family’s (ie both spouses’) income, the more comfortable (note: I didn’t say luxurious) your family’s life will be. It means you are more likely to afford tuition for your children (and we all know that your ability to provide private tuition for your kids is what’s going to determine their future). With childcare prices hitting over $1000, and milk powder more expensive than wine, any university grad’s ex-classmate will be a lot more attractive than a bus driver. It really doesn’t matter whether you are looking for a wife or husband — the fact is, if your income is $5000 ... and you marry your office cleaner rather than your office accountant, your HDB mortgage period is going to double. It may mean you need to work till 70yrs instead of 60yrs, just to pay off your mortgage.

Now assuming you aren’t too concerned about staying in a decent sized flat — you’re fine with a shoebox, the social pressures are immense too, for both wife-hunters and husband-hunters. When a fast-rising young man chooses a retail-sales girl over a fellow fast-rising banker, the poor girl is often stereotyped as a gold-digger. I’m sure we’ve all heard stories where daughter-in-laws are treated differently because of their education or income.

In a low-GINI country where income differences aren’t as stark, where your spouse’s income isn’t going to impact on the quality of your parent’s medical care, there would be more people willing to let love conquer social class differences. With the income criteria more easily met by anyone, it’s easier to find someone because the number of available partners increases tremendously. A bigger pool means you’ve more chances of finding someone you’ve got great chemistry with, someone with the same hobbies are you, someone who finds your bad habits cute. And that may mean more people joining the band-wagon of smug marrieds with their 2.08 kids.

...ONE of our challenges is our low fertility rate. For a country’s population to remain stable, it needs a total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.14. Singapore’s current TFR is 1.2. Our population experts tell us that our population will begin to shrink by 2025. They have, therefore, argued that, to make up the deficit, we need to import foreigners to add to our population.

Importing foreigners is the second best solution. The best solution is to raise our TFR. On this point, our policymakers seem to have run out of ideas. The various incentive schemes, such as baby bonus, do not seem to be productive. It is time to look at our four European countries for inspiration. Their 2010 TFRs were as follows:

Denmark: 1.87
Finland: 1.87
Norway: 1.95
Sweden: 1.98
The four Nordic countries have TFRs which are close to the replacement level. This achievement seems extraordinary. They do not have the benefit of maids. There are over 200,000 foreign domestic workers in Singapore. They also do not have grandparents who help with child-rearing. At the same time, they have very high participation of women in their workforces. In terms of availability of time and help for child-rearing, common sense would suggest that the TFR in Singapore should be higher than those in the Nordic countries. How do we explain this paradox?

Our population experts cannot explain this paradox. I will venture a hypothesis. I believe that the high TFR in the Nordic countries could be due to four factors: the availability of convenient, affordable and good childcare; good work-life balance; an excellent and relatively stress-free education system; and the relative absence of male chauvinism....