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Fertility Rate And Age Specific Fertility Rates

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This paper will explore the population phenomena pertaining to Singapore acquiring and sustaining low fertility, which has ultimately resulted in an ageing population. There is a multitude of interconnected factors that have contributed to Singapore’s low fertility, and more importantly how this has reduced younger populations being added every year. However, this paper will focus on the premise that women’s higher educational attainment has prompted a delay in marriage, and thus a delay in having babies. Therefore, this paper will evaluate statistics retrieved from the International Data Base from the Census Bureau Website that include the Total Fertility Rate and Age Specific Fertility Rate in Singapore over a span of twenty years. …show more content…

The Age Specific Fertility Rate is contingent on the age of a woman and places her in groups of women based on their age and then predicts how many babies each woman is expected to have over a period of time based on a specific population (Poston & Bouvier, 2010, p. 45). In Singapore, the Age Specific Fertility Rate peaked for women between the ages 30-34 in 1997, 2007, and 2017. However, while there was a reduction in fertility rates for all ages across a women’s life span from 1997 to 2007, there was a slight increase in fertility rates in 2017 for the age groups 30-34, 34-39, 40-44, and 45-49 (Refer to Graph 1). While elderly women tend to have fewer babies on average than younger ones, which is true for Singapore, the slight increase in childbearing in later years indicates changes in the structure of individual lives and the society as a whole. This data ultimately suggests that women in Singapore are waiting longer to get married and have children, which are pertinent causes of the country’s low fertility and ageing population. While there are many societal and economic factors contributing to delays in marriage and reproduction, this paper will focus primarily on the increase of Singaporean women obtaining higher education and subsequently joining the workforce. In the article, “Delayed marriage and ultra low fertility in Singapore…”

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