Singapore’s Total Fertility Rate

In almost half a century, the number of births per woman in Singapore has gone from 5.8 in 1960 to 1.2 in 2016. Since 1988, the TFR has generally been on the decline and reached its lowest point last year. Nevertheless, the median age in which Singaporean couples first marry has been relatively constant over the past 11 years (28 years for women and 30 years for men). The average number of children born in 2015 and 2016 are also higher than the annual average for the last decade. Numerous factors have been identified as contributing to the decline in Singapore’s TFR. Some examples include the high cost of living, longer years spent as a full-time student, prioritising career development, as well as changing individual and social values.

As a researcher, you have been tasked with developing a research design that incorporates both qualitative and quantitative research methods to identify the explanatory factors behind Singapore’s declining TFR, which are generalisable to the wider population. The findings and conclusions of your study will then be used to guide the formulation of policies and programmes to raise Singapore’s TFR.

Your research proposal must include the following sections:

1. A) Introduction

Write an introduction that discusses the theoretical and conceptual background of your proposed research by reviewing the relevant empirical and theoretical literature (local and international) on the causes and/or consequences of falling birth rates. You must include at least three peer-reviewed academic journal articles in your brief literature review.

(20 marks)

1. B) Qualitative Research Design

Describe a qualitative research design using either in-depth interviews or focus group discussions, which would help you to contextualise the explanatory factors that you have identified in your literature review. This phase of the research should explore and identify any new factors that may have been overlooked or underdeveloped in the current state of research on low birth rates/declining TFR.

Your research design should discuss the following components:

1. i)  The selection of research site(s) and informants.
2. ii)  The process and strategies for gathering and recording data.
3. C) Quantitative Research Design

Based on the findings obtained through your literature review and qualitative research, develop a clear empirical research question with a minimum of three well-formulated and testable hypotheses.

1. i)  Research Design: Describe and discuss your unit of analysis and research design concerning how the study will be conducted to gather primary or secondary data (e.g., the design of your survey, interviews, experiments, content analysis or archival research). Discuss and justify your choice of research design with adequate discussions concerning validity issues of your research design.
2. ii)  Sampling: Identify the population of your study. Describe and justify an appropriate sampling process that you would undertake to select any sort of observation such as participants, policies or cases from your study population.

iii)  Measurement: Discuss with adequate information the measurement of all variables relevant to your main hypotheses. The discussions must include levels of measurement, conceptualisation and operationalisation as well as reliability and validity issues of your measurement.

(40 marks)

 

1. D) Concluding Remarks
2. i) Discuss how your anticipated findings may contribute to the research literature and the practical or policy implications of your expected findings for the TFR of Singapore.
3. ii) Identify potential limitations of your research project.

(20 marks)

Students’ Notes

You will be assessed primarily on your ability to critically formulate a systematic, analytically robust, and feasible research proposal that addresses the topic of interest in the case study. It is strongly suggested that you review rigorous academic research articles relevant to the concepts and topics associated with declining TFR in Singapore.

You will be assessed primarily on your ability to critically formulate a systematic, analytically robust, and feasible research proposal that addresses the topic of interest in the case study. It is strongly suggested that you review scholarly articles relevant to explaining the factors contributing to a declining TFR. Show that you are acquainted with the key debates/issues in your discussion. This will aid you with the design of your study, the selection of variables, and the formulation of hypotheses. Draw from the content in the course in its entirety. In order to ensure that your research proposal is coherent and cogent on the whole, check that each stage of your research design/process clearly relates to both the case study and your proposed hypotheses.

Your response to this ECA should be written in a format similar to an academic essay, with proper citation of your sources and references. You must also provide a bibliography at the end of your ECA. Failure to do so will result in the investigation for plagiarism by your tutor. Your essay will be marked holistically. The allocation of marks for each part of the question is a general guide to the relative importance of each part.

Please be reminded that submissions exceeding the word limit will be penalised.