We Need Babies!

A report released on the Department of Statistics website showed 39,935 babies were born in 2008, up marginally from the previous year.

It is the highest number of births since 2002, when there were 40,760 babies born, but remains well short of the number needed for population levels to remain stable without measures such as increased immigration. Singapore needs a fertility rate of 2.1 babies per woman so that the population can replace itself naturally, the government has said.

The government has implemented several measures, including financial incentives, to encourage married Singaporeans to have more babies but these have failed to make a significant impact.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last year unveiled plans worth more than S$700 million that include the extension of government—paid maternity leave.
To avert a serious population shortage, the government has set its sights on luring more immigrants to the affluent city—state.
Singapore had a population of 4.84 million in 2008, including about one million foreigners who work in the country and their families. -contents from yahoo!Singapore

Despite the many incentives and privileges the government is issuing to the people, i feel that none of the measures seem to encourage the birthrate to hit the optimal level for the nation. From paying lesser taxes to providing paid maternity leave, and even the introduction of maternity leave for dads in 2008, the government is still unable to hit the necessary 60k-babies a-year target.

Well this question has been around for the last decade, one that is very prominent in most advanced countries such as Japan and Korea due to factors such as increasing level of education and more time spent of working. As the dependency ratio of the country rises due to the high growth in the aging population and low birthrate, every individual has to shoulder more burden from the growing dependency of the economy and society.

Singaporeans, lets WORK HARD.