Singapore to offer baby bonus as people put plans on hold in Covid crisis

Singapore plans to offer a one-off payment to encourage couples to have a baby during the coronavirus pandemic, fearing that the economic impact of the outbreak is worsening the city state’s already low birth rate.

Singapore has struggled for decades to encourage more people to have children, offering cash grants, preschool subsidies, and even matchmaking tea dances as incentives. The deputy prime minister, Heng Swee Keat, said officials had heard that some aspiring parents were putting plans on hold due to Covid-19.

“This is fully understandable, especially when they face uncertainty with their income. Hence, to help with expenses during this period, we will introduce a one-off additional support for newborns,” he said. The value of the payment has not been announced, but it will be provided on top of current benefits that are worth up to $10,000 Singapore dollars (£5,707).

China’s birthrate falls to lowest level despite push for more babies

Read more

Data showing the impact of the pandemic on fertility is still emerging, but suggests a fall in birth rates in many wealthy countries, and an increase in low or middle-income nations, where barriers to accessing contraception have been exacerbated by the lockdown measures.

A survey of young people across European countries found a huge proportion of respondents were postponing or abandoning their plans to have a baby – especially in countries where the birth rate is already very low, such as Italy and Spain.

“People who have the fortune and the economic security and ability to access contraceptives to make that decision [to not have a baby] will do so,” said Dr Clare Wenham, assistant professor in global health policy at London School of Economics, who added that fears about safety and financial security were likely to deter people from having a child.

“The problem is not everyone in the world can choose when they want to get pregnant – either because of gender norms, violence or because of a lack of access to reproductive health service,” she added.

While Singapore expects Covid will cause a drop in its birth rate – which is one of the lowest in the world, with 1.1 births per woman in 2018 – other countries in south-east Asia are preparing for a post-pandemic baby boom.

In the Philippines, a joint estimate by the University of the Philippines Population Institute and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) suggested the country’s strictly enforced lockdown earlier this year could lead to the highest number of births in two decades.

Movement restrictions imposed in March left women and medics unable to access family planning clinics and disrupted supply chains of condoms and other contraceptives. In Indonesia, a rise in births has also been forecast.

“In other crisis situations, we tend to see a drop in fertility during the crisis but then an increase in fertility during knock-on stages,” said Wenham.

“In Ebola we saw a mixed picture. We saw high rates of maternal mortality compared with previous years and [high rates] of stillbirths. But we also saw increased rates of teenage pregnancies.

“During the coronavirus outbreak, again, we’re seeing significant increases in stillbirths in lots of parts of the world – but that’s not necessarily because of the outbreak per se, it’s because of changes to provision of services.”

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has predicted as many as 7 million unintended pregnancies could occur worldwide as a result of the crisis, while Maries Stopes International has warned of millions of unsafe abortions globally and a rise in maternal deaths.

Activists have also raised alarm over increases in domestic violence around the world, in countries ranging from Brazil, Germany and Italy to China.

Providing cash incentives to encourage people to give birth during a pandemic is questionable, given the uncertainties over the impact of the virus on pregnant women or babies.

“There was some quite shocking data coming out of Brazil earlier in the year, showing Brazil has got the highest rate of postpartum mortality [where there is] coinfection with Covid,” said Wenham. “It might be a range of other things. The point is: we don’t know that yet.”