POPULATION PLANNING AND CHANGE IN SINGAPORE

Population planning in Singapore has always been linked to economic pl anning. Lacking natural resources on an island 536 sq. kms. in size, t he physical carrying capacity was not large so that the government had to resort to careful economic planning to overcome this constraint. T he ''stop at 2'' population policy of 1965-87 was designed to support the economic plans to improve the quality of life of the people. Restr aint of population growth was promoted as a necessary move serving the common good of Singaporeans as the country struggled in her early yea rs of independence to build a nation. By 1983, however, Singapore swit ched from being antinatal to being pronatal. The environmental determi nism school that influenced population planning gave way to environmen tal possibilism in which man is the main agent determining his own act ions in the population-environment relationship. Technology has allowe d the leadership of Singapore to make use of the global economy as its hinterland. By concentrating on the high-end service sector, such as mercantile banking or currency markets, Singapore has used the new inf ormation age of computers to take advantage of the changing world mark et. The ''quality'' population required to do this job is missing, thu s the ''have 3 or more if you can afford it'' policy.