Stop at Two

Stop at Two was the popular name for the anti-natalist population policy pursued by the Government of Singapore from 1972 to 1987, under which the government encouraged married couples to have no more than two children. Administered by the Singapore Family Planning and Population Board (SFPPB), the policy combined publicity campaigns built around the slogan "Stop at Two" with a set of financial and administrative disincentives against larger families. It was reversed in 1987, when a falling birth rate led the government to adopt a pro-natalist policy under the slogan "Have Three or More (if you can afford it)".

Background

Family planning was introduced to Singapore in 1949 by a group of volunteers led by Constance Goh, which became the Family Planning Association of Singapore. After taking office, the People's Action Party government turned family planning into a national programme: in September 1965 the Minister for Health, Yong Nyuk Lin, submitted a white paper recommending a five-year mass family-planning programme, and in January 1966 the SFPPB was established, absorbing the work of the Family Planning Association.

The programme's aim was to reduce the birth rate, which the government regarded as a threat to economic development, housing and the provision of social services in the years after independence. Early campaigns promoted the general desirability of a "small family" without specifying a number of children, using messages such as "Plan your family". These measures reduced the crude birth rate from 28.3 to 21.8 births per 1,000 residents between 1966 and 1969, and the total fertility rate from 4.42 to 3.15.

Introduction of the two-child policy

From 1970 the crude birth rate began to rise again, from 22.1 to 23.1 births per 1,000 residents by 1972, as the postwar baby-boom generation reached childbearing age. In response, the government revised its message from a general "small family" appeal to a specific two-child norm, directed in particular at couples with lower educational qualifications and lower incomes.

The two-child policy was introduced by the Minister for Health, Chua Sian Chin, on 20 July 1972 at the launch of that year's National Family Planning Campaign, under the theme "Plan Wisely for a Small, Healthy and Happy Family". Chua stated that the SFPPB aimed to encourage the less-educated and lower-income groups to have only two children so that those children would have better opportunities in life. The policy was based on the calculation that an average of two children per family would, over time, stabilise Singapore's population at the replacement fertility rate of 2.1.

The campaign was carried to the grassroots by community leaders and members of Parliament. In July 1972, for example, the Member of Parliament for Whampoa, Dr Augustine Tan, conducted house-to-house visits in his constituency distributing family-planning pamphlets and urging residents to plan for small families.

Disincentives against larger families

On 24 October 1972, Chua announced a set of measures in Parliament to discourage couples from having more than two children. Coming into effect on 1 August 1973, the disincentives included a reduction of income tax relief to cover only the first three children; a progressive increase in childbirth (accouchement) fees in government hospitals according to birth order; a reduction of paid maternity leave from three to two confinements; and lower priority in the allocation of Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats for larger families.

These were accompanied by incentives encouraging sterilisation. Childbirth fees were waived for couples in which either spouse underwent sterilisation after delivery, and civil-service mothers with two children who chose to be sterilised after their latest delivery retained paid maternity leave. Priority in the most sought-after primary schools was given to children whose parents had been sterilised before the age of 40.

In unveiling the measures, Chua argued that smaller families would allow parents to provide their children with better housing, food and education, and that, nationally, smaller families would allow the government to raise living standards by distributing resources more evenly.

Campaigns

Rather than confine publicity to campaign periods, the SFPPB formed an Information, Education and Communications Unit in 1972 to conduct year-round publicity. The campaign produced multilingual posters, booklets and pamphlets, and slogans were printed on Public Utilities Board bills and on franked mail. The campaign messaging marked a shift from the earlier general "small family" appeal to a direct argument for the two-child family as a social norm, with slogans such as "Small families, brighter future – Two is enough" and "The more you have, the less they get – Two is enough". Other messages, including "Boy or girl – Two is enough" and "Take your time to say yes", encouraged couples to accept two children regardless of sex and discouraged early marriage and parenthood. Posters frequently depicted two girls, intended to counter a prevalent preference for sons.

Clinical measures

The policy was accompanied by two laws passed in 1974 that liberalised access to abortion and sterilisation. The Abortion Act was amended to permit abortion on the written consent of the pregnant woman, removing an age requirement and abolishing the Termination of Pregnancy Authorisation Board, subject to conditions including that the procedure be carried out by a registered practitioner and that the pregnancy be of less than 24 weeks. Moving the Bill's second reading on 6 November 1974, the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Chua Sian Chin, described the existing Act as a successful "social experiment" and proposed making it permanent, with the decision to terminate a pregnancy resting with the woman and her doctor and the upper limit extended from 16 to 24 weeks. The government withdrew the party whip for the debate in deference to members' religious and ethical beliefs, and several backbenchers spoke against the Bill on ethical and religious grounds; it was passed. The Voluntary Sterilisation Act removed earlier restrictions on sterilisation, including a requirement for prior approval from the Eugenics Board, which was abolished, making sterilisation largely a private matter between applicant and doctor.

Targeting and criticism

The policy was explicitly directed at lower-income and less-educated groups, a feature stated openly by the government at the time. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew argued in 1969 that free education and subsidised housing risked encouraging less economically productive groups to have larger families, and that disincentives were needed to discourage this. The government justified the policy as encouraging poorer parents to concentrate their resources on fewer children. The same reasoning extended to the accompanying clinical laws: during the 1974 Abortion Bill debate, the government cited as a yardstick for the abortion and sterilisation laws whether they would tend to "raise or lower the total quality of our population". Commentators have noted that, because Malay and Indian families were stereotyped as larger than Chinese ones, the policy attracted criticism that it favoured the Chinese majority and carried eugenic overtones.

Results and reversal

The disincentives and campaigns substantially reduced the birth rate. The crude birth rate fell from 23.1 births per 1,000 residents in 1972 to 14.8 in 1986, and the total fertility rate fell from about 3.07 to 1.43, well below the replacement level of 2.1; the rate first dropped below replacement in 1977.

By the early 1980s, officials observed that while the overall message had succeeded, a minority of larger families remained. In 1983 the Permanent Secretary (Health), Dr Andrew Chew, said that families with four or more children still accounted for about 6.3 per cent of births and that the disincentives had not proven meaningful for these groups, for whom he considered education the better approach. In 1984 the government introduced a sterilisation cash-incentive scheme offering a grant to low-income, low-education couples who were sterilised after one or two children; by March 1985, 47 couples had qualified for the benefit.

Recognising the falling birth rate, the government set up the Inter-Ministerial Population Committee in 1986, and abolished the SFPPB that year. On 1 March 1987, the First Deputy Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, announced a new pro-natalist policy under the slogan "Have Three or More (if you can afford it)", encouraging couples who could afford it to have three or more children. The new policy nonetheless retained an income-linked element, continuing to discourage larger families among those with lower incomes. Singapore's total fertility rate has remained below replacement level in the decades since.

The extent to which the Stop at Two policy contributed to Singapore's later low fertility has been disputed. At a 2011 dialogue at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Lee Kuan Yew said the policy had "nothing to do" with the country's subsequent ageing population and low birth rate, attributing the decline instead to a pattern seen across developed countries in which more women, educated and with equal job opportunities, no longer saw their role solely as bearing children. He argued that the response to the resulting shortfall lay in immigration rather than in raising the birth rate.

See also

• Goh Chok Tong
• Lee Kuan Yew
• Housing and Development Board