The latest Singapore Population in Brief (PIB) 2014 report issued by the National Population and Talent Division highlighted a number of interesting but unsurprising demographic trends for Singapore. Presenting changes from June 2013 to June 2014, three issues received attention: Singapore’s fast ageing population, low total fertility rates (TFR) and a slow-down in the growth of what remains a large foreign population.

In view of its importance, how do these demographic patterns affect Singapore’s efforts to strengthen national resilience?Having adopted a whole-of-society approach to building and sustaining national resilience, there is an inevitable need to better appreciate current and future demographic patterns of the country. Learning to adapt to these trends will enable policy-makers to better enhance strengths while managing vulnerabilities inherent in the Singaporean society.

…This article was written by Yeap Su Yin, an Associate Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. It was originally published on the RSIS site and reproduced here with their kind permission.