From the 1965 -2011 population
and income changes under 3 different Prime Ministers of Singapore, it is not so
difficult to identify the population driven income growth prime minister.
From the published
statistics# of population and income from Department of Statistics, we can see
the performance of the 3 Prime Ministers.
Using 1965 as the base year, the year of our independence, the period
under Lee KuanYew is 25 year (1965-1990), Goh Chok Tong 14 years (1990-2004)
and Lee Hsien Loong 7 years (2004-2011).
Clearly, Lee senior
scored very well in both population and income increase. His 25 years saw an
increase of 1.16 million in population (61.49%) but an income increase of 1302%
to $22,868 per capita. His strategy is slow population increase and high income
increase.
Goh Chok Tong used
another 14 years, increased the population by another 1.119 million (36.49%) but
with a slow income growth of 85.65% to $42,455 per capita.
From 2004 to 2011, Lee
junior used only 7 years to increase the population by another 1.017 million
(24.41%) and of course the income also grew by 45.31% to $61,692 per capita.
Table 1: 1965-2011
Singapore population and income@
Year
|
Population (‘000)
|
Population
increase (‘000, %)
|
Income@ (S$)
|
Income increase (S$,
%)
|
Government Administration
(PM)
|
1965
|
1,886.9
|
1,631
|
Lee Kuan Yew
|
||
1990
|
3,047.1
|
1,160.2 （61.49%）
|
22,868
|
21237 （1302.1%）
|
Goh Chok Tong
|
2004
|
4,166.7
|
1,119.6 （36.74%）
|
42,455
|
19,587 （85.65%）
|
Lee Hsien Loong
|
2011
|
5,183.7
|
1,017 （24.41%）
|
61,692
|
19237 （45.31%）
|
@ Per capita GNI at
current market prices
Shorter and
shorter time taken to increase million populations
From 25 years
(1965-1990), to 14 years (1990-2004) then to 7 years (2004-2011), million-population
increase was achieved under the 3 different prime ministers. At the same time,
nearly $20,000+ income per person was also achieved during the 25, 14 and
7-year periods.
Shorter time to have additional
million populations and shorter time to have another $20,000 per capita income,
this is how we do it.
A success story
Starting from a low
base, Singapore is really a success story as claimed by the PM during his
National Day Message this year. From a
population of 1.886 million and an income per capita of only $1,631 in 1965, we
did very well in the past 46 years. Our yearly increase of population is 3.8%
and income per capita, 80%. In 2011, our
population and income per capita stood at 5.183 million and $61,692
respectively.
What a wonderful
achievement in term of population and income increase!
Table 2: Comparison
between 1965 and 2011 population and income
Year
|
Population (000)
|
Population increase
(000, %)
|
Income@ (S$)
|
Income increase (S$,
%)
|
1965
|
1,886.9
|
1,631
|
||
2011
|
5,183.7
|
3,296.8 （174.72%）
|
61,692
|
60,061 （36824.7%）
|
Yearly increase (%)
|
3.80%
|
80.05%
|
Population driven
income growth
If we divide 46 years
into 3 different periods under 3 different prime ministers, based on yearly
increase data, Lee Hsien Loong achieved his income growth by injecting more
population into Singapore economy in a shorter time. His 3.49% population yearly increase is the
highest comparing to his father and Goh.
And this income growth percentage
(6.47%) is only slightly better than Goh’s 6.12% but Goh only used a population
yearly increase of 2.62% as compared to the current PM’s 3.49% per year.
Table 3: Yearly average increase in population
and income 1965-2011 under 3 different PMs
Period
|
Years
|
Yearly
increase in population
|
Yearly increase in
income
|
Administration
|
1965-1990
|
25
|
2.46%
|
52.08%
|
Lee Kuan Yew
|
1990-2004
|
14
|
2.62%
|
6.12%
|
Goh Chok Tong
|
2004-2011
|
7
|
3.49%
|
6.47%
|
Lee Hsien Loong
|
1965-2011
|
46
|
3.8%
|
80.05%
|
Can Singapore income
growth increase as before under Lee Hsien Loong without a high rate of
population increase? It seems not likely.
Comparing Goh and Lee junior, there is a substantial difference in
population growth strategy. Goh uses a moderate
growth rate of 2.62% but Lee junior uses a higher rate of 3.49%.
Education and
quality of workforce
Even with better
education and higher quality of (local) workforce, Lee is not able to make used
of this advantage to increase income. He has to depend on population increase
to achieve income growth. During Lee
senior’s or even Goh’s tenure, our local education level and quality of
workforce were much more lower but these have not affected the income growth.
How come we manage to
increase income with less educated and less qualify workers from 1965 to 2004
and why not now?
Declining birth
rate
From early period of
stop at two to the later period of more marriages and more babies, the
population is still manage to grow at 3.8% yearly in the past 46 years.
This means a substantial
increase in population is foreign driven.
Are we importing lower quality workforce to make up the number, to lower
down the average education and qualification level of the total population? (So
that there is room to pay lower wages to both local and foreign workforce).
There may be more
interesting co-relationships between published population and income statistics
#. Here, we have not discussed the
distribution of the increased income – who have taken away the share? We may
need to divide the income into local and foreign to get a better picture. We need to do more to …..
Some qualify academics
may help to provide a better picture to Singaporeans. Can we seek some helps
from the liberal thinking of Yale-NUS College next year when it starts its
education in Singapore?
#
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