Speech by Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong Committee of Supply Debate 2026

Chairman, with your permission, Minister Indranee Rajah and I will take any clarifications after both our speeches.

Introduction

Earlier I spoke about the urgent realities of climate change. Now, I turn to a challenge equally fundamental to Singapore’s future – our population.

Our people are our primary resource. In the early years of our independence, demographics worked in our favour. While many of our forefathers were new immigrants, most had become citizens. We had a young and growing citizen population then, which helped grow our economy, build up our SAF, and develop our nation.

Fast forward 60 years, this is no longer the case today. Birth rates are falling at an unprecedented pace, and our population is ageing rapidly. We are not alone in facing these trends. Many developed and even developing countries are grappling with these same issues. However, Singapore’s small size makes us exceptionally sensitive to demographic shifts. We must proactively manage these changes, to continue to thrive as a nation.

Addressing Our Demographic Challenges

Last year, we welcomed around 27,500 resident births¹. We celebrate each and every child born to us. They are the future of our country. However, this is the lowest number ever in our recorded history. The overall trend is of grave concern. Marriage rates have come down, and those who are married have fewer or no children.

Our birth rate has reached a new low. Our preliminary resident total fertility rate (TFR) for 2025 is 0.87. This is a significant drop from the TFR of 0.97 the year before, and much lower than the TFR of 1.24 just a decade ago.

At the same time, our population is ageing faster than ever, with the baby boomer generation now in their 60s and beyond. Last year, 1 in 5 citizens was aged 65 and above, compared to 1 in 8 in 2015, just ten years ago. This is an existential challenge.

What does a TFR of 0.87 mean? Let me try to illustrate.

Assuming our TFR stays at 0.87 – based on a simplistic calculation, for every 100 residents today, we will have just 44 children, and a mere 19 grandchildren.²

Over time, it will be practically impossible to reverse the trend, because we will have fewer and fewer women who can bear children.

PM said we have not given up, and he emphasised we will not give up. Let me add – we cannot give up.

Low birth rates and an ageing population will profoundly reshape our nation, our society and our economy in the years ahead.

Even with immigration, the growth of our citizen population has slowed over the past decade – falling from an average of 0.9% per annum over 2015-2020, to 0.8% per annum over 2020-2025. Last year, it grew just 0.7%. If no new measures are taken, our citizen population will start to shrink by the early part of the 2040s.

Fewer births today mean fewer young people over the next two to three decades. A smaller working-age base will have to support a rapidly growing elderly population; familial support networks will weaken as family sizes shrink. Each family member in the younger generation will have to carry a heavier load.At the macro level, a declining population means less vitality in our city and our economy. Our economic growth, and correspondingly, our income growth will slow. At the same time, our healthcare and social spending will have to increase to support our growing population of seniors. This tremendous strain will be felt at the national level, but also by individual households. And with fewer citizens, it will become increasingly difficult to meet our national security and national defence needs.

This raises the deeper question of what Singapore will be 50 or 100 years from now – will we remain vibrant, liveable and relevant?

Supporting Singaporeans’ Marriage & Parenthood Aspirations

Our first and top priority is to continue to support Singaporeans in forming families.

Over the years, we have consistently invested in our families. We have steadily enhanced support for families in housing, preschool, education and healthcare. To better support working parents in managing their work and caregiving responsibilities, we also recently introduced the new Shared Parental Leave scheme and doubled the mandatory Government-Paid Paternity Leave from two weeks to four weeks.

But we will need to do even more. The decline in fertility is a multifaceted challenge. It reflects broader generational shifts in life priorities and mindsets. Attitudes towards marriage and parenthood are shaped by many factors – workplace norms and employer practices, availability of familial and community support, and social attitudes towards having and raising children. We need to address these issues holistically and not simply blame it on any particular, single factor.

We will do more to strengthen support for Singaporeans in their marriage and parenthood journey. Minister Indranee will speak later about the whole-of-nation reset needed to support Singaporeans in starting families.

Immigration as a Necessary Measure

Let me speak plainly about the realities before us. Even as we redouble our efforts to support Singaporeans in starting families and having more children, we will still need a carefully managed immigration flow to augment our low birth rate.

Most Singaporeans recognise the case for immigration. A 2021 Institute of Policy Studies survey found that over 75% of Singaporeans agreed that immigrants are generally good for Singapore’s economy, and 62% agreed that immigrants improve Singapore society by bringing in new ideas and culture.

But we know that’s not the full picture. While Singaporeans can accept the need for immigration in the abstract, we also have personal concerns and anxieties. Will bringing in immigrants mean fewer job opportunities for me? Will the Singapore that my children grow up in feel vastly different from the one I grew up in? I understand these concerns.

We take these concerns over competition and our social fabric seriously, and will continue taking steps to address them.

We will maintain the broad ethnic balance of our citizen population, and continue to carefully manage the impact of immigration on our population composition, to preserve the overall texture of our society.

We will carefully manage the pace of immigration, and ensure we do not bring in immigrants in faster than we can accommodate. This means making sure the development of public infrastructure like housing, transport and services keeps pace with the growth of our population.

We will also continue to be selective about who we bring in. As Mr Edward Chia noted, many of the immigrants we take in today either share family ties with Singaporeans or have studied, worked or lived in Singapore for some time. The majority of our immigrants are also of working age, contributing to our economy. We will continue to explore further ways to ensure that immigrants are committed to Singapore.

Mr Shawn Loh spoke about how we must place greater emphasis on integration. We agree. We will step up integration efforts, creating more opportunities for citizens and immigrants to interact, connect, and build relationships and trust.

There are ongoing efforts to help immigrants integrate and become familiar with local culture. All new citizens between the ages of 16 and 60 go through the Singapore Citizenship Journey, so that they understand our history, our norms, our values, and build stronger ties with the local community. We also piloted a new Permanent Resident (PR) Journey programme last year to help new PRs settle in and integrate, and we intend to scale it up in shortly.

The People’s Association is also working through its network of over 1,500 Integration and Naturalisation Champions to drive integration in local communities, and foster good relations between new citizens and their Singaporean neighbours.

Our immigrants came from different cultures and traditions. It will take time for them to integrate. First-generation immigrants will need to adapt to our norms and customs; but their children are likely to integrate more easily, especially if they grow up in Singapore.

Take for example Bipule Jain, who arrived in Singapore in 2007 with his wife and six-month-old son on a work assignment. What began as a temporary re-location became permanent, as his Singaporean colleagues welcomed him and introduced him to our local culture. Bipule actively immersed himself in the local community – trying local food, picking up Singlish, volunteering at his son’s school and in the community, and making new friends along the way.

In 2017, he took a significant step by enlisting in the SAF Volunteer Corps, initially to teach his sons about National Service, but he soon developed a deep passion for defending Singapore. Today, Bipule’s elder son – that six-month-old baby who arrived in 2007 – is following in his father’s footsteps and proudly serving his National Service. Bipule, his wife and his two sons are PRs, and have applied for citizenship.

Their story shows us what is possible when we open up our doors and hearts to newcomers. Over time, many of them become our friends, and eventually fellow citizens, working together in one Singapore team to build a brighter, better home for all of us.

It is critical that we maintain a stable citizen core, hopefully one that is growing modestly over time, to keep our society and our economy dynamic and vibrant.

Last year, we granted around 25,000 citizenships. We expect to take in between 25,000 and 30,000 new citizens annually, over the next five years, depending on our demographic trends including our TFR.

We will also have to adjust our PR intake, as permanent residence is the pathway to work towards citizenship. Our PR population has remained stable over the past few years, at around 540,000. We estimate an intake of about 40,000 PRs annually in the next five years, slightly higher than the 35,000 PRs we granted last year.

That said, we will adjust the actual number of immigrants we take in year by year, depending on our TFR trends, other demographic factors, and the number and suitability of applicants. We will also keep in mind our infrastructure and society’s capacity to take in these immigrants.

With these adjustments, we hope to maintain a stable citizen population, and perhaps with a modest growth. Like I mentioned earlier, the growth of our citizen population has slowed down, from 0.9% to 0.8% and then 0.7% last year. Going forward, the citizen population will likely grow even more slowly, maybe about half a percent. That’s what we’re thinking about. But even at half a percent this is going to be hard, as it would rely on the TFR being held up. That’s why we cannot give up.

We will review again by 2030, taking into account further changes in our TFR and other demographic trends.

Managing Our Foreign Workforce

Our local workforce growth has also slowed. We will continue to need a diverse foreign workforce to supplement the local workforce, and support our economic and social needs.

In the past five years, our foreign workforce³ grew at an average of 3.3% per annum, primarily driven by post-COVID catch-up in construction. Excluding Construction Work Permit Holders, the foreign workforce grew more slowly, at an average of 2.5% per annum. But as our citizen population grows more slowly, we will keep a close watch on the growth of the non-resident population, which includes foreign workers, to ensure that Singapore citizens remain the majority of the population.

As we bring in foreign workers, our policies are designed to ensure they complement our Singaporean core.

As announced at Budget, we will increase our Employment Pass (EP) and S Pass qualifying salaries to keep pace with local wage benchmarks. The Complementarity Assessment Framework (COMPASS) also ensures that firms bring in workers that contribute to our economy, while the firms continue to build up their local talent pipeline. We will continue to carefully manage the numbers and concentrations of EP and S Pass holders, and ensure that they complement rather than compete with locals. We will also carefully manage the number of Work Permit Holders using levy and quota systems.

We need skilled foreign workers to help fill critical manpower gaps, to help our companies build up new capabilities, and to support the growth of our economy. This ultimately creates more jobs and opportunities for our people.

Take for example, aerospace company Singapore Aero Engine Services Private Limited (SAESL), Rolls-Royce’s largest global Maintenance, Repair and Operations facility for Trent engines, currently employs 1,300 local staff. With a $242 million expansion and a new Training Academy supporting its growth plans, SAESL expects to create 500 additional jobs for local skilled engine technicians over the next five years.

SAESL is working with Singapore Polytechnic to align its training curriculum with industry needs to better prepare our students to take up these jobs. This expansion will be complemented by a foreign workforce undertaking specialised roles such as non-destructive testing and plasma treatment.

There are many other companies like SAESL whose growth has generated new opportunities for Singaporean workers. Overall, in the last 10 years, the number of Singaporeans in PMET jobs has increased by 308,000 while the number of EP and S Pass holders increased by 24,000.

But we understand the job anxieties Singaporeans have, especially in this time of global uncertainty.

The number of EP and S Pass holders is small, making up less than a quarter of our foreign workforce. The issue is therefore less about the total number, but about issues of job competition and fair treatment at the workplace, as raised by Mr Xie Yao Quan and Mr Yip Hon Weng.

We are stepping up efforts not only to create good jobs for Singaporeans, but to upskill Singaporeans so they can take up these high-value jobs. At the same time, we will strengthen measures to ensure fair hiring and employment practices, and to ensure fair opportunities for Singaporeans. Last year, we passed the Workplace Fairness Act to strengthen protections against workplace discrimination.

Lastly, beyond legislative and policy safeguards, we can do more to make the workplace more conducive for all. MCCY has partnered the business community via the Alliance for Action on the Integration of Foreign Professionals, to develop initiatives to better integrate foreign professionals into the workplace and the community.

MCCY and MOM will elaborate further on some of these initiatives at their Committee of Supply debates.

As Mr Edward Chia and Mr Yip Hon Weng noted, we also need foreign workers to meet our social needs. And they asked if we can have more flexibility.

For example, migrant domestic workers help look after our young children and aged parents, giving us peace of mind while we are out at work. We also need migrant construction workers for major infrastructure projects – they help build our flats, hospitals, roads, MRT lines and critical projects like Changi Airport Terminal 5 and Tuas Port. These workers make up almost half of our foreign workforce population.

Demand for these groups will fluctuate, depending on economic and construction cycles. For example, post-COVID, we had to catch up on a series of important construction projects, including BTO flats. This strong demand led to a 6% annual growth, or a 36% growth cumulatively, in the number of Construction Work Permit Holders over the last five years.

These migrant workers are transient and do not compete with Singaporeans for jobs. But it is important that we plan ahead to support their presence here, including catering for dormitories and housing, transport and recreational spaces.

If we can do this well, it will give us more flexibility and capacity to allow for temporary surges in their numbers, while minimising the impact felt by Singaporeans. At the same time, we will press hard to raise productivity in construction – MND set up an Action Team earlier this month to work with industry players to improve productivity, and help companies save time, save costs and save manpower.

Across the board, we will do what we can to raise productivity to reduce our reliance on foreign manpower. The recent moves to simplify the levy framework, expand sources, and raise the maximum age and period of employment for Work Permit Holders, will nudge businesses to hire and retain higher-skilled workers, so they can do more with less manpower.

Looking ahead, our total population for the next five years will hopefully still grow, but most likely at a slower rate than over the past five years. And our total population will still be significantly below 6.9 million by 2030, as we have said earlier. Beyond 2030, if present trends continue, it will take us a considerable time to reach 6.9 million.

Let me be clear that we are not chasing growth for the sake of growth’s sake. Economic growth is the means to an end, which is to improve the lives of Singaporeans. Our overarching goal has been and will always remain to serve the interests of Singaporeans. We will keep close track of the population size and composition, to ensure that the trends are sustainable, that infrastructure needs are met in a timely and adequate manner, and that ultimately, Singaporeans ultimately benefit from our population policies.

Conclusion

To conclude, our falling TFR presents a serious and profound existential challenge to our society, our economy and our security.

The Government must, and will do its utmost to address this challenge. This is our commitment to all Singaporeans.

We will redouble our efforts to support Singaporeans to aspire to marriage and parenthood, and to realise their dream. This has always been and will continue to be our fundamental priority. We must never let up in supporting Singaporeans to have families. We will also continue to review our immigration intake and approach, making sure to address the concerns of Singaporeans.

We will continue to study how we can further strengthen our investment in key areas for Singaporeans – education, housing, healthcare and jobs. This way, every Singaporean will have the assurances, opportunities and support needed to realise his or her aspiration in our shared vision.

But the existential challenge of our low TFR is not something that the Government can tackle on our own. We ask Singaporeans to partner us in this effort, and welcome all debate and fresh ideas on how to do so.

Our path ahead will not be straightforward. But I am confident in our ability to adapt and thrive. Together, we will build a vibrant and resilient Singapore for present and future generations.

 

 

 ¹ Based on preliminary data on resident births in 2025.

² This theoretical scenario assumes a TFR (i.e. the average number of children a woman would have over her childbearing years) of 0.87 sustained over time, and that half of the population is female.

³ Including migrant domestic workers.