Editing Demographics of Singapore (section)

===Population growth===
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; text-align:center; margin:1em;"
|-
|+ '''Population growth and immigration in selected periods'''<ref name="saw2">{{cite book |author=Saw Swee-Hock |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dD2qVu8EpdUC&pg=PA14 |title=The Population of Singapore |date=30 June 2012 |publisher=ISEAS Publishing |isbn=978-981-4380-98-0 |edition=3rd |pages=11–18}}</ref>
|-
!style="width:6em;"| Period
!style="width:7em;"| Population increase
!style="width:7em;"| Natural increase
!style="width:7em;"| Net immigration
|-
|align=left|1881–1891
| 43,857
| −30,932{{ref|1|A}}
| 74,798
|-
|align=left|1901–1911
| 75,729
| −59,978{{ref|1|A}}
| 135,707
|-
|align=left|1921–1931
| 230,387
| 18,176
| 212,211
|-
|align=left|1947–1957
| 507,800
| 395,600
| 112,200
|-
|align=left|1970–1980
| 339,400
| 315,400
| 24,000
|-
|align=left|1990–2000
| 980,755
| 325,887
| 654,868
|-
|align=left|2000–2010
| 1,048,845
| 224,718
| 824,127
|-
|align=left|2010–2020
| 609,075
| 203,643
| 405,432
|-
|colspan=4|
*<small>{{note|1|A}} Negative figures are due to low birth rate and high death rate</small>
|}
{{see also|Immigration to Singapore}}

Population growth in Singapore was fueled by immigration for a long period of time, starting soon after [[Stamford Raffles]] landed in Singapore in 1819, when the population of the island was estimated to be around 1,000.<ref name="rahim">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1utb8ZYyUeQC&pg=PA24 |title=Singapore in the Malay World: Building and Breaching Regional Bridges |date=9 November 2010 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-134-01397-5 |page=24 |author=Lily Zubaidah Rahim}}</ref> The first official census taken in January 1824 showed that the resident population of Singapore had grown to 10,683: 4,580 Malays, 3,317 Chinese, 1,925 [[Bugis]], 756 natives of India, 74 Europeans, 16 Armenians, and 15 Arabs.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bernard |first=F. J. |date=15 November 1884 |title=An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore |work=The Straits Times |url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes18841115-1.2.11 |url-status=live |access-date=20 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180130210434/http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes18841115-1.2.11 |archive-date=30 January 2018}}</ref> Chinese males greatly outnumbered the females; in the 1826 population figures there were 5,747 Chinese males but only 341 Chinese females, in contrast to 2,501 Malay males and 2,289 Malay females. The figures for around a thousand Indians in 1826 were also similarly skewed towards male – 209 male and 35 female [[Bengalis]], 772 males and 5 females from the [[Coromandel Coast]].<ref name="census 1826">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924023134368#page/n43/mode/2up |title=Twentieth century impressions of British Malaya: its history, people, commerce, industries, and resources |date=1907 |editor=Wright, Arnold |page=37 |editor2=Cartwright, H.A.}}</ref> By 1836, the population figure had risen to 29,980, and marked a change in demographics as the Malays were outnumbered for the first time; 45.9% of the population were Chinese versus 41.9% for Malays (including Javanese and Bugis).<ref name="census 1836">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=50ZFAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41 |title=The Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volume 22 |date=30 March 2009 |publisher=Charles Knight |isbn=978-0-8248-3354-1 |page=41}}</ref><ref name="jstor1">{{cite journal |author=Saw Swee-Hock |date=March 1969 |title=Population Trends in Singapore, 1819–1967 |journal=Journal of Southeast Asian History |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=36–49 |doi=10.1017/S0217781100004270 |jstor=20067730}}</ref> Women from China were discouraged from emigrating, and most of the Chinese females in this early period of Singapore were likely {{transliteration|ms|[[Peranakan|nyonyas]]}} from [[Malacca]]; it was noted in 1837 that there were no Chinese women in Singapore who had emigrated directly from China.<ref name="jstor1" />

The imbalance of the sexes continued for a long period, for example, the 1901 census figures show that there were 130,367 Chinese males compared to 33,674 Chinese females.<ref>{{cite book |section=Straits Settlements |section-url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924030396067#page/n189/mode/2up/search/singapore |title=Census of the British empire. 1901 |date=1906 |publisher=Great Britain Census Office |page=123}}</ref> Such imbalance also meant that fewer people were born in early Singapore, and in the first hundred years, most of the Chinese population in Singapore were immigrants. By the late 1890s, only around 10% of the Chinese population in Singapore were born there.<ref name="warren">{{cite book |author=James Francis Warren |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wVyqbmHS2zQC&pg=PA19 |title=Rickshaw Coolie: A People's History of Singapore, 1880–1940 |date=30 June 2003 |publisher=NUS Press |isbn=978-9971-69-266-7 |page=19}}</ref> Many of the early migrant workers from China and India did not intend to settle permanently to raise their families in Singapore; they worked to send back remittance to their families back home, and would return to China or India after they had earned enough money. Later an increasing number of Chinese chose to settle permanently in Singapore, especially in the 1920s when it became more favourable to stay in Singapore rather than returning to China. Change in social attitude in the modern era also meant that Chinese women were freer to emigrate from China, and the sex ratio began to normalise.<ref name="jstor1" /> This gradual normalisation of sex ratio led to an increase in the number of native births. Immigration continued to be the main reason for the Chinese population increase in Singapore until the 1931–1947 period when the natural increase in population surpassed the net immigration figure.<ref name="warren" /><ref name="Saw Swee-Hock 12">{{cite book |author=Saw Swee-Hock |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dD2qVu8EpdUC&pg=PA12 |title=The Population of Singapore |date=30 June 2012 |publisher=ISEAS Publishing |isbn=978-981-4380-98-0 |edition=3rd |page=12}}</ref>

After [[World War II]], in the period from 1947 to 1957, Singapore saw a massive population increase mostly due to increased number of native births.<ref name="Natalism">{{cite journal |last=Wong |first=Theresa |author2=Brenda Yeoh |year=2003 |title=Fertility and the Family: An Overview of Pro-natalist Population Policies in Singapore |url=http://www.populationasia.org/Publications/RP/AMCRP12.pdf |journal=Asian Metacentre Research Paper Series |issue=12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727182245/http://www.populationasia.org/Publications/RP/AMCRP12.pdf |archive-date=27 July 2011 |access-date=12 August 2011}}</ref> The birth rate rose and the death rate fell; the average annual growth rate was 4.4%, of which 1% was due to immigration; Singapore experienced its highest birth rate in 1957 at 42.7 per thousand individuals. (This was also the same year the [[United States]] saw its peak birth rate.)

Immigration to Singapore also fell sharply after Singapore independence due to tighter control of immigration from Malaysia and other countries. The population increase became dominated by native births with 315,400 in the 1970–1980 period due to natural increase compared to 24,000 from net migration. However, a lower rate of natural growth in population and the need for low-skill labour resulted in a deliberate shift in policy by the Singapore government to allow more foreigners to live and work in the country, and net migration increased in the 1980–1990 period to nearly 200,000. By the decade of 1990–2000, the net migrant number of over 600,000 had surpassed the natural growth of the population, and accounted for nearly two-thirds of the population increase. The same high level of immigration is also seen in the next decade with 664,083 net migration recorded.<ref name="saw2" />
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin:1em;"
! Net migration rate
| align="right" | 9.12 migrants/1,000 population (2006 est.)
|}
Due to the continued low birth rate, amongst other reasons, the Singapore government has varied its [[Immigration to Singapore|immigration policy]] over the years. As the demand for labour grew with industrialisation, foreign talent with professional qualifications as well as less-skilled foreign workers has made up a significant and increasing proportion of Singapore's total population since the 2000s and 2010s. Curbs on immigration, however, began to be implemented in the 2010s to ease increasing social issues arising from the high level of immigration.<ref name="ST 2015">{{cite news |author=Rachel Chang |date=3 August 2015 |title=No easy choices on foreign worker, immigrant policies: PM Lee |work=The Straits Times |url=http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/no-easy-choices-on-foreign-worker-immigrant-policies-pm-lee |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116183146/http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/no-easy-choices-on-foreign-worker-immigrant-policies-pm-lee |archive-date=16 January 2017}}</ref>