AN INTERACTIVE APPROACH TO POPULATION PLANNING

It is inevitable that the Population White Paper concluded with a projected total population of up to 6.9 million in 2030 and the resultant need to spend at least between S$350 billion and S$400 billion to build 700,000 new HDB flats, three new towns, new MRT lines and reclaim land over the next 17 years to cope with it.

As a piece of classic prospective planning trying to optimize policies using current trends and assumptions, the white paper's conclusions are as logical as they are predictable.

But, the point is, such scenario-predicting is highly unreliable and unlikely to lead to game-changing solutions.

Demographic challenges are complex with individual problems interacting with each other and dealing with one problem by conventional methods creates new ones that may worsen the overall situation.

Retroactive planning used by some opposing voices is no better as it is only preoccupied with identifying and fixing existing bad situations. 

Therefore, we must find a third way in interactive planning.  The idea here is to design a desirable future and invent ways to bring that future about by working backwards towards the present.  

If our desired future in 2030 is to maintain our present ratio of economically active: inactive people with less immigration, we may have to think differently.

First, replace the narrow  incentivizing  of childbirth with the wide incentivizing of parenthood. An SPPC (Singapore Parents Privilege Card) can be issued to all parents which will confer wide advantages when using public services. That way, non- parents will be nudged to join the ranks of parents. 

Second, redefine productive population. If our life expectancy increases, our economically-productive lifespan and scope should also increase in tandem.  We should abolish the retirement-age and gender-based employment policies altogether.

Third, redefine the concept of the Singapore Core to include all who in any way contribute to the well-being of Singapore, even for a temporary period of time. Concrete privileges of being in the Singapore Core will be conferred only on the Singapore Parent.

(An edited version of this article was published in the Forum column of the Straits Times today)