In the most recent years of the dragon in 1988 and 2000 the numbers of babies born in the city state spiked by 10 per cent, in stark contrast to the declining birth rate during the years in between.
In 2010 the Singapore fertility rate fell to 1.15 per female, way below the 2.1 needed to replace the population, to the dismay of the prime minister Lee Hsien Loong.
“I fervently hope that this will be a big ‘dragon’ year for babies,” he said. “This is critical to preserve a Singapore core in our society. We don’t want to rely more and more heavily on immigration, nor do we want to see our population shrinking year by year.”
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