Boosting Babies: Singapore’s Drive to Raise Birth Rates

Singapore and many other developed countries around the world face a dilemma where fewer young people are getting married and having children. After vigorously discouraging citizens from having too many children in the 1960s and 1970s, the Singapore government observed that the total fertility rate fell rapidly in the early 1980s. The government then responded with a variety of economic and education incentives for mothers and social matchmaking services for singles. However, they were unable to prevent birth rates from falling below replacement levels.

Lim Soon Hock, chairman of the National Family Planning Council since 2006, and his committee then decides that youth should be the target audience for the 2011 campaign initiatives. They approach a class at the Singapore Management University with a brief to come up with new ideas targeted at persuading the youth to start thinking about family as an important aim in life. This is a persuasion case that demonstrates the interweaving of source, receptor and context that persuaders must grapple with when trying to change attitudes and behaviour.

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