Family

Population Trends

The annualised population growth rate was slightly higher at 1.1% over the past five years, compared to 0.8% over the previous five-year period. This was mainly due to post-COVID-19 growth in the number of Work Permit Holders in the Construction, Marine Shipyard and Process sectors to catch up on projects impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both citizen and permanent resident populations also increased.

Marriages, marital dissolutions, and births

Citizen marriages in 2023 saw a slight decrease from the record high in 2022. The high number of marriages observed in 2022 was partly due to couples resuming their marriage plans after disruptions caused by the pandemic. The average number of citizen marriages per year in the last five years was lower than that of the preceding five years.

Total marital dissolutions increased slightly in 2023 compared with 2022. Fluctuations were observed from 2020, partly due to the disruption in divorce proceedings as a result of the pandemic. The average number of marital dissolutions per year in the last five years was lower than that of the preceding five years.

Citizen births have decreased since 2019. Resident total fertility rate (TFR), a measure of average births a female would have over her reproductive years, further declined to 0.97 in 2023, due to fewer and later marriages and births. A similar trend of declining TFR was also seen in many other societies.

Read more: Population in Brief 2024 [PDF, 1.3 MB]

Strengthening support for marriage and family formation

Supporting marriage and parenthood remains our national priority.

From our surveys and Forward Singapore engagements, young Singaporeans still aspire towards marriage and parenthood but are concerned about the financial costs of raising children and difficulties in managing work and family commitments.

Over the years, we have implemented more measures to support Singaporeans across their marriage and parenthood journey.

Starting a family

To help parents manage work and caregiving needs, especially at the infancy stage:

• We announced a new Government-Paid Shared Parental Leave (SPL) scheme that will provide 10 additional weeks of paid parental leave, on top of maternity and paternity leave. The new SPL will be implemented in two phases, starting with six weeks from 1 April 2025 and increasing to 10 weeks from 1 April 2026.

• Since 1 January 2024, we have doubled Government-Paid Paternity Leave for eligible working fathers from two to four weeks, with the additional two weeks provided on a voluntary basis. The additional two weeks will be made mandatory from 1 April 2025 to encourage more fathers to be involved in child-raising.

• Since 1 January 2024, we have doubled Unpaid Infant Care Leave to 12 days per parent per year, in their child’s first two years.

• The Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangment Requests [PDF, 1.8 MB], which will take effect from 1 December 2024, will help caregivers better tap on flexible work arrangements to support their caregiving needs.

Read more: Quality Jobs

Beyond leave, we are supporting families’ infant caregiving needs by increasing the availability of infant caregiving options:

• To cater to growing demand, the Government has increased the number of full-day infant care places by around 50% in the last five years, from around 9,700 in 2019 to 14,600 in 2023. As announced in the Forward Singapore report [PDF, 18.3 MB], we will add another 9,000 centre-based infant care places by 2030.

• We will launch a three-year childminding pilot for infants by December 2024 to provide affordable, safe, and reliable caregiving services for parents who prefer more personalised home-based care.

We continued to help parents manage the cost of raising children:

• We enhanced the Baby Bonus Scheme (BBS) for Singaporean children born on or after 14 February 2023, with an increased Baby Bonus Cash Gift disbursed over a longer period, such that parents receive sustained support until their child enters primary school. Government contributions to the Child Development Account were also increased. As at September 2024, around 48,000 children have benefitted from the BBS enhancements.

• With the BBS enhancements and MediSave Grant for Newborns, parents can receive up to $24,000 for their firstborn, and up to $37,000 for subsequent children.

• For education, a Singaporean child can receive around $200,000 in education subsidies from preschool through secondary school.

• For healthcare, the same child can receive subsidies of up to 80% at public healthcare institutions as well as fully-subsidised nationally-recommended childhood vaccinations and developmental screenings at polyclinics and General Practitioner clinics under the Community Health Assist Scheme.

Read more: Education | Health and Wellness | Spirit of Forward Singapore

We made moves under the Child and Maternal Health and Well-being Strategy and Action Plan to drive better health outcomes for children and their families:

• From November 2022, we progressively launched Family Nexus pilots at four sites to provide families with young children with one-stop health and social services within their communities.

• Families are provided with enhanced health support through pregnancy and parenthood. This includes mental health screenings and support for pregnant women and new fathers at antenatal and postnatal stages, which have been available since end-2022. As at August 2024, these programmes at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and National University Hospital had benefitted over 3,200 women and/or their spouses.

Read more: Health and Wellness

Further measures were introduced to enable Singaporeans to access affordable homes when they wish to start and raise families. These included the First Timer (Parents & Married Couples) priority category and the one-year Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme (Open Market) Voucher.

Read more: Housing and Amenities

Building resilient families

Strong and stable families form the bedrock of a thriving society. To cultivate a society that values and supports families, we expanded the National Family Week into a month-long National Family Festival (NFF) in 2024. The NFF comprised islandwide activities encouraging Singaporeans to strengthen family bonds and celebrate their loved ones. Over 700,000 individuals attended the 2024 NFF.

We increased Singaporeans’ access to resources to nurture relationships and their marriages under Families for Life:

• Under Families for Life @ Community, families can conveniently access programmes and community support for marriage, parenting, and grandparenting within their neighbourhoods. To benefit more families, Families for Life @ Community will expand from nine to 18 towns by December 2024 and nationwide by 2025.

• Couples, parents-to-be, and parents of children under 12 years old can benefit from resources that equip them with strategies to nurture healthy marriages and children. These include bite-sized marriage tips, a relationship health check tool ('Our Marriage Journey Quiz’), and resources on the Families for Life Parenting Portal.

Fostering a Singapore Made For Families

The Made For Families initiative was launched in 2020 to encourage individuals, businesses, and community groups to contribute towards a culture that values and puts families first, and to assure families of support from the Government and society at large.

Feature Story: Nurturing family-friendly workplaces

As at 1 September 2024, more than 270 businesses had pledged their commitment and implemented family-friendly practices in support of Made For Families.

An example is facility management company ISS Facility Services, which adopted the Tripartite Standard on Work-Life Harmony, alongside other initiatives to cultivate a family-friendly workplace. This included offering both flexi-place and flexi-time working options, allowing employees to work from home or adjust their schedules to fit their family needs.

To better support female employees returning from maternity leave, ISS provided dedicated lactation rooms and regular nursing breaks. ISS also encouraged parents to bring their children to work for events such as Children’s Day celebrations and World Cleanup Day, promoting family bonding and shared responsibility for the environment.

Such family-friendly efforts helped to improve staff morale, retention, and productivity, all while fostering a culture of greater work-life balance.

The Government will continue to work with our stakeholders to foster a Singapore Made For Families.

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