denny Ethnic & National book

SINGAPORE: Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Grace Fu has rebutted the notion that bringing in more foreigners would dilute the Singaporean identity. That was one area of concern raised by several MPs, including the opposition Workers' Party, during the parliamentary debate on the Population White Paper and Land Use Plan. Ms Fu said promoting marriage and parenthood is central to maintaining a strong Singaporean core and that allowing immigration does not mean the government takes its marriage and parenthood objectives less seriously. Over the two days of debate, several MPs have questioned what it means to have a Singaporean core with more foreigners in the midst. Addressing this issue, Ms Fu said encouraging marriage and parenthood remains top priority. She pointed to the recently enhanced Marriage and Parenthood package aimed at supporting parents in balancing work and family life, supporting shared parental responsibility and defraying the cost of raising children. While the government is "hopeful" and "ambitiously" looking forward to improving the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) to between 1.4 and 1.5 from the current 1.29, authorities are also realistic about how quickly birth rates can improve, said Ms Fu. "In the meantime, we continue to have to address the shortfall of births, and our approach has been to supplement our citizen population with a calibrated pace of immigration," she said. "Allowing immigration does not mean that we do not take our marriage and ...