MORTALITY DECLINE IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

During the second half of the twentieth century, the world witnesses an impressive increase in the expected years of life of its population. Furthermore, governments and demographers are also increasingly recognising that a long and healthy life is one of the most highly valued components of social welfare. Individuals have ranked good health at or near the top of the list of attributes that they seek for themselves and their families. However, health and longevity are not simply the intermediate goals on the road to economic development but are among the principal characteristics that define development itself. In fact, mortality level, like GNP, is often used in the development literature to measure a country's stage of development. The purpose of this thesis is to carry out a statistical analysis of the changes in mortality levels in Singapore for the last 50 years and how some of the socio­ economic factors have affected the mortality levels. Furthermore, it also briefly traces the effects of the mortality trend and how has it influences the way of living for many Singaporeans. The thesis is organised into six chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the measurement of mortality, including the quality of available data. Moreover, several indexes are used to compute and report mortality pattern and trends. Different perspectives of general mortality in Singapore using various measurements are described in Chapter 2. Subsequently, Chapter 3 deals with morality differentials. The analysis includes differences in terms of occupations, cause of death in particular, motor vehicle traffic accidents and suicides, age group, sex and ethnic group. In Chapter 4, it explores the relationship between postwar mortality decline in Singapore to various social and economic infrastructures by using simple regression technique. Chapter 5 discusses the consequences of such mortality decline in Singapore and finally, followed by a summary of the thesis's principal conclusion about the past, present and future mortality patterns and trends in Singapore in Chapter 6. In early years, racial and ethnic mortality patterns vary widely by socioeconomic standing, and Malays turned out having the highest death rates in the early years. However, in recent years, there is a converging trend among the three main ethnic groups. Females of all ages have much lower mortality rates than males, and biological differences do play a significant role, though inevitably they interact with environmental forces. However, the mortality gap between the males and females has narrowed in recent years. Other factors also correlate significantly with mortality differentials. For example, death rates are lower at the higher occupational levels. In general, death rates will fall as income rises, partly because wealthier people are best able to afford good health care and other death controls, and also because of the high income, high levels of education, and high occupational status will depress death rates. To considerable degree, one's probability of dying is positively related to one's economic standing. Hence, for a country to experience continual low mortality rate, constant improvement of the socio economic factor is of extreme importance.

Nevertheless, mortality decline has indirectly brought about an ageing population and growth of the dependence ratio, as more people tend to live longer. We would need to find appropriate economic and social responses to ageing of the Singapore population as the aged dependents who would number almost one in three of the total population in the very near future.