third-order and higher births would also be waived with sterilisation. the campaign was known to target the uneducated in particular; lee believed that, "free education and subsidised housing lead to a situation where the less economically productive people ... are reproducing themselves at ." he believed that implementing a system of government disincentives would stop "the irresponsible, the social delinquents" from thinking that having more children would entitle them to more government-provided social services. we must encourage those who earn less than $200 per month and cannot afford to nurture and educate many children never to have more than two...we will regret the time lost if we do not now take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellectually and culturally anaemic. lee kuan yew, 1969 the government justified its social policy as a means of encouraging the poor to concentrate their limited resources on nurturing their existing children, making them more likely to be capable, productive citizens. the government also had to respond to criticism that this policy favoured chinese over minority races; malays and indians were stereotyped to have higher birth rates and bigger families than the chinese, further fuelling accusations of eugenics. demographic transition and the graduate mothers scheme as singapore modernised in the 1970s, fertility continued to drop. the natural replacement rate reached 1.006 in 1975; thereafter the replacement rate would drop below unity. furthermore, the so-called "demographic gift" was occurring in singapore as with other countries; increases in income, education and health and the role of women in the workforce were strongly correlated to levels of low population growth. according to a paper by the library of congress, by the 1980s, "singapore's vital statistics resembled those of other countries with comparable income levels but without singapore's publicity campaigns and elaborate array of administrative incentives." lee kuan yew was alarmed at the perceived demographic trend that educated women – most of all the college-educated – would be less likely to marry and procreate. such a trend would run antithetical to his demographic policy, and part of this failure, lee conjectured, was "the apparent preference of male university graduates for less highly educated wives". this trend was deemed in a 1983 speech as "a serious social problem". starting 1984, the government of singapore gave education and housing priorities, tax rebates and other benefits to mothers with a university degree, as well as their children. the government also encouraged singapore men to choose highly educated women as wives, establishing the social development unit (sdu) that year to promote socialising among men and women graduates, a unit that was also nicknamed "single, desperate and ugly". the government also provided incentives for educated mothers to have three or four children, in what was the beginning of the reversal of the original stop at two policy. the measures sparked controversy and what became known as the great marriage debate in the press. some sections of the population, including graduate women, were upset by the views of lee kuan yew, who had questioned that perhaps the campaign for women's rights had been too successful: equal employment opportunities, yes, but we shouldn't get our women into jobs where they cannot, at the same time, be mothers...our most valuable asset is in the ability of our people, yet we are frittering away this asset through the unintended consequences of changes in our education policy and equal career opportunities for women. this has affected their traditional role ... as mothers, the creators and protectors of the next generation.— lee kuan yew, "talent for the future", 14 august 1983 the uproar over the proposal led to a swing of 12.9 percent against the people's action party government in the 1984 general election. in 1985, especially controversial portions of the policy that gave education and housing priorities to educated women were eventually abandoned or modified. a 1992 study noted that 61% of women giving birth had secondary education or higher, but this proportion dropped for third-order births (52%) and fourth-or-higher-order births (36%), supporting the idea that more children per capita continue to be born to women with less qualifications, and correspondingly, lower income. this issue is greatly known as the great marriage debate. many incentives were given to graduate women to marry and give birth to produce babies which were believed to be 'highly intelligent' to maximise the talent pool in singapore. women without o-level qualifications, deemed low-income and lowly educated, were offered by the government seven days' paid sick leave and $10,000 sgd in cash incentives to voluntarily undergo the sterilisation procedure. phase 2: increase fertility have-three-or-more (if you can afford it) in 1986 the government of singapore had recognised that falling birth rates were a serious problem and began to reverse its past policy of stop-at-two, encouraging higher birth rates instead. by 30 june of that year, the authorities had abolished the family planning and population board, and by 1987, the total fertility rate had dropped to 1.44. that year, goh chok tong announced a new slogan: have three or more (if you can afford it), announcing that the government now promoted a larger family size of three or more children for married couples who could afford them, and promoted "the joys of marriage and parenthood". the new policy took into account singapore's falling fertility rate and its increased proportion of the elderly, but was still concerned with the "disproportionate procreation" of the educated versus the uneducated, and discouraged having more than two children if the couple did not have sufficient income, to minimise the amount of welfare aid spent on such families. the government also relaxed its immigration policies. in october 1987, future prime minister lee hsien loong, then a young brigadier-general, exhorted singaporeans to procreate rather than "passively watch ourselves going extinct". united press international noted the "baffled" reaction of parents, many who had grown up in an era where they were told that having more than two children was "antisocial". one parent commented, "are we being told to have more children for the sake of the country or for ourselves?" goh chok tong, despite the scepticism, remained optimistic that the population rate would be restored to the replacement rate by 1995. an nus sociologist however, observed that singapore had "a new breed of women" – one "involved in their careers used to a certain amount of leisure and more material possessions" – and hence would not be as receptive to financial incentives as previous women of the 1960s and the 1970s. as of 2011, singapore's birth rate has not yet been restored to replacement level. policy comparisons between have-three-or-more and stop-at-two, starting 1988 mothers with a third child would get 750 sgd in child relief (factoring historic exchange rates, this was about $662 in 2010 us dollars). if a mother had three 'o'-level passes in one sitting, she would qualify for an enhanced child relief rebate (lowered from a threshold of five passes). having a fourth child would qualify for enhanced child relief of 750 sgd plus 15% of the mother's income, up to 10000 sgd. all disincentives and penalties given in school registration to families with more than two children are to be removed; in the presence of competition, priority would be allocated to families with more than two children. subsidies for each child in a government-run or government-approved child care centre medisave could now be authorised for hospital costs of a third child (previously forbidden under the stop at two policy) families with more than two children with a hdb flat of three rooms or higher would receive priority if they desired to upgrade to a larger flat "abortions of convenience" discouraged, with compulsory abortion counselling women undergoing sterilisation with less than three children would receive compulsory counselling expansion of the sdu's role and authority; recognising that the low birth rate reflected late marriages, the sdu also wooed those with postsecondary a-level qualifications rather than just college graduates starting 1990, a tax rebate of 20,000 sgd (us$18,000 in 2010 dollars, factoring historic exchange rates) were given to mothers who had their second child before the age of 28 starting 1993, the sterilisation cash grant for lowly educated women was liberalised, allowing women to agree to use reversible contraception rather than sterilisation; educational bursaries for existing children were added as existing benefits, so long as the number did not exceed two. statistics on failure of phase two phase two started in the early 1960s. the natural rate of increase (per 1,000 population) between the years of 1955–1960 (five years previous to phase two) was 35.4. five to ten years later, the natural rate of increase decreased to 27.8. following that, 20 years later the natural rate of increase continued to decline. the natural rate of increase between the time period of 1980–1985, was 12.2, and several years after that, between the years of 2010–2015 the natural rate of increase, continued decreased to 4.6. the lowest natural rate of increase seen in singapore and according to the data of the united nations (2017) will continue to decline. the rate of natural increase in singapore is forecasted to decrease to 1.2 between the period of 2025–2030. singapore population time period rate of natural increase 1955–1960 35.4 1960–1965 27.8 1965–1970 19.7 1970–1975 16.8 1975–1980 11.8 1980–1985 12.2 1985–1990 13.1 1990–1995 13.4 1995–2000 9.7 2000–2005 6.7 2005–2010 5.6 2010–2015 4.6 modern legacy and current practices the modern sdu, renamed the social development network in 2009, encourages all singaporean couples to procreate and marry to reverse singapore's negative replacement rate. some of the social welfare, dating and marriage encouragement, and family planning policies are also managed by the ministry of community development, youth and sports. channel newsasia reported in january 2011 that the fertility rate of singaporeans in 2010 were 1.02 for chinese, 1.13 for indians and 1.65 for malays. in 2008, lee kuan yew said the below-national-average birth rate for the chinese was a "worrying trend". that same year, he was quoted as saying, " you marry a non-graduate, then you are going to worry if your son or daughter is going to make it to the university." different sources have offered differing judgments on the government policies' impact on the population structure of singapore. while most agree that the policies have been very interventionist, comprehensive and broad, the library of congress country study argues "it is impossible to separate the effects of government policies from the broader socioeconomic forces promoting later marriage and smaller families," suggesting that the government could only work with or work against much more powerful natural demographic trends. to the researchers of the study, the methods used in 1987 to attempt to reverse the falling birth rate was a demonstration of "the government's assumption" that citizens were receptive towards monetary incentives and administrative allocation of social services when it came to family planning. however saw swee hock, a statistician and demographer quoted in the straits times in 2008, argued the demographic transition "was rapid because of the government's strong population control measures," but also admitted that, "even without the stop at two policy, the would have gone below 2.1 due to ." when demographic transition statistics are examined – in 1960, the total fertility rate was approximately ~6 – asian metacentre researcher theresa wong notes that singaporean birth rates and death rates fell dramatically in a period that occurred over "much shorter time period than in western countries," yet such a short time frame is also seen in other southeast asian countries, where family planning campaigns were much less aggressive. according to saw swee hock, "the measures were comprehensive and strong, but they weren't reversed quickly enough". though newer modern policies exhibit "signs that the government is beginning to recognise the ineffectiveness of a purely monetary approach to increasing birth rates", a former civil servant noted that the government needs "to learn to fine-tune to the emotions rather than to dollars and cents. it should appeal more to the sense of fulfilment of having children". such measures include promoting workplaces that encourage spending time with the family, and creating a "romancing singapore campaign" that " to pro-children and pro-family initiatives," since "people get turned off" when the government appears to intervene in such intimate social