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The country’s deputy prime minister said the incentive would help reassure people facing financial pressure and concerned about their work.
“We have received comments that Covid-19 has caused some would-be fathers to postpone their parenting plans,” Heng Swee Keat told lawmakers on Monday.
“This is totally understandable, especially when they face uncertainty with their income.”
Heng said the payment would help the parents with expenses, but did not confirm how much would be paid.
Despite a largely successful public health response to the pandemic, Singapore’s economy has entered a deep recession.
Singapore has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, a statistic that successive governments have tried without success to reverse.
The fertility rate is now just 1.14 births per woman, according to her national statistics body.
For a country to repopulate naturally, women are expected to have 2.1 babies on average, although most developed countries are now below that level, as a decline in the proportion of partners and the lesser importance of traditional gender roles have made women fertility rates fall globally.
Singapore has struggled to reverse the trend since the 1980s, with public campaigns encouraging childbirth and a host of financial and tax incentives that have failed to stem its decline.
CNN’s Isaac Yee contributed to this report.
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