I am reading this volume at the moment, which presents fertility case studies across a number of countries. It was published in 2015, so it is a bit out of date relative to the past decade’s ongoing and broadening fertility decline. But I was struck by the chapter on Singapore and the initial phase of the country’s pro-natal policies in the mid-1980s, which were strongly influenced by so-called positive eugenics. From the relevant chapter:
“ (… ) in 1984, the state implemented selective pro-natalist policies, described as the “eugenic phase” of Singapore’s population policy. Educated women were given incentives to reproduce under the “Graduate Mother Scheme,” while sterilization cash incentives were offered to less educated women.”
As the authors—Gavin W. Jones and Wajihah Hamid—go on to explain, this overtly eugenic policy was quickly abandoned. Still, it made me to think more broadly about the extent to which eugenics have driven pro-natal policies, either overtly or implicitly, since WWII, and what this history can tell us about modern policy design as governments attempt to raise birth rates for women facing different opportunity costs of childrearing depending on educational attainment, and opportunities in the labour force.
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