Make More Tiger Babies

SINGAPORE'S Prime Minister today urged citizens to make more babies this year and ignore superstitions about the Chinese zodiac, as the city state's birth rate continued to plunge.
Lee Hsien Loong said in a Lunar New Year message the fertility rate in the predominantly ethnic Chinese island had dipped to its lowest level ever at 1.23 babies per woman last year, from 1.28 in 2008.
This is well below the 2.1 babies needed for the population to replenish itself naturally.
"This is the lowest we have ever experienced. It means last year we were short of at least 10,000 babies just to replace ourselves," Mr Lee said.
The fertility rate among ethnic Chinese citizens was even lower than the national average at 1.09 babies per woman.
"Probably the recession last year made couples hold back having babies. But it also reflects fundamental social changes that are affecting all East Asian societies," he said.
Mr Lee said he was particularly worried about ethnic Chinese couples who chose to hold back having babies during Tiger years because of a superstition that children born during the year will have the animal's attributes.
In each of the last three Tiger years - 1974, 1986 and 1998 - the number of births dropped by seven percent, the prime minister noted.
"It is one thing to encourage ourselves with the traditional attributes of the zodiac animals," he said.
"But it is another to cling on to superstitions against children born in the Year of the Tiger, who are really no different from children born under other animal signs."
The government has so far introduced a number of measures, including financial incentives and government-paid maternity leave, to encourage married Singaporeans to have more children.
Singapore had a population of 4.99 million as of June 2009, including more than one million foreign workers and their families.

news.com.au 13th Feb 2010