Workers' Party population paper calls for higher citizen numbers

The opposition Workers' Party (WP) has issued its population policy paper to the public to spur greater debate.

The government’s own white paper had been subject to debate at Parliament before an amended motion endorsing it passed the House.

Public anger over the paper, which projects that Singapore's population will grow to as much as 6.9 million in 2030 of which nearly half would be foreigner, drew several thousands to a protest on 16 February.

In a statement Saturday, WP secretary-general Low Thia Khiang said the party decided to publish its policy paper to “enable Singaporeans to better understand the rationale and computations behind WP’s proposal” made in Parliament.

In WP’s paper, the party predicts that by 2030, the city-state's population would be between 5.6 to 5.8 million, of which around 60 per cent of it will consist of citizens.

WP came up with their population projection based on the assumption that total fertility rate would increase to 1.75 and labour force participation would rise to 78.7 per cent, both higher than the government paper's. The policy paper also projected GDP growth of 1.5 to 2.5 per cent in the next decade.

WP said such numbers could be achieved even by freezing foreign workforce growth and raising the resident workforce by 1 per cent per year, through to 2030.

Measures

The party noted the importance of boosting local workers’ participation in the labour force, especially among women and senior citizens.

The paper campaigned for women to receive more flexi-work arrangements and senior citizens to have friendlier work environments so that companies can tap into their expertise.

WP lambasted the government’s immigration policy and insisted that boosting Singaporean birth rates “without the distraction of immigration top-up” was the way forward to maintain a strong Singaporean core.

However, the policy paper emphasised WP was not “anti-foreigner”.

To combat declining birth rates, WP proposed a “whole-of-Government” approach. This includes doling out incremental housing grants for subsequent childbirth, initiating bonding leave for fathers with young children, and extending parenthood benefits to single parents.

The paper proposed taking in a lower number of new citizens at 10,000 each year, as opposed to the 15,000 to 25,000 proposed in the white paper.

The paper also criticised the government’s land use plan as one that “will increase overall population density”.

Government backbenchers have reacted negatively towards WP’s proposals.

Minister for Prime Minister’s Office S Iswaran called them “drastic and inherently risky”, while Minister for Prime Minister’s Office Grace Fu posted on her Facebook page Saturday that WP’s proposed foreign labour growth freeze would “cause great hardship to Singaporeans and SMEs”.

In response to the critique, the policy paper stressed its intention of also promoting resident workforce growth in the short term and boosting birth rates in the long term, as opposed to what WP perceives as the government’s intention of “(feeding) workforce growth with mainly immigrant workers”.

All nine WP parliamentarians voted against the government white paper.