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Population planning in Singapore spans two distinct phases: first to slow and reverse the boom in births that started after World War II; and second, from the 1980s onwards, to encourage parents to have more children because birth numbers had fallen below replacement levels. The first phase was enforced, by Singapore Family Planning and Population Board Act, in 1966 after Singapore faced “post war food and housing shortages. SFPPB targeted low-socioeconomic status individuals, particularly females, and worked to encourage contraceptive use, such as condoms and birth control. The SFPPB advocated for small families, establishing the Stop-at-Two programme, which pushed for small two-children families and promoted sterilisation in order to have population control. SFPPB also opened more clinics to better the health and welfare of families.The government program “Stop-at-Two” was very successful. The program could even be considered too successful. The policy that only allowed couples to have only two children started to cause a population decline and impact the population structure of Singapore in a negative manner. The government has made attempts to reverse the falling birth rates, initiating phase two. Phase two has been very unsuccessful. A lot of policies set in place by the government during phase one made phase two difficult to take place. In phase one, civil workers were not paid for maternity leave after their second child, hospital fees were higher after the second child, top school choices were given to only children, and sterilization was benefited with seven days of paid leave. During phase two, several of these policies were still taking place and individuals remained having one child, or no children.The government eventually became pro-natalist, and officially announced its replacement Have-Three-or-More in 1987, in which the government continued its efforts to better the quality and quantity of the population while discouraging low-income families from having children. The Social Development Unit was also established in 1984 to promote marriage and romance between educated individuals.
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