Abstract.Day4.Choo

Gender and Education Contributions to Singapore's Economic Support Ratio

Eddie Choo and Christopher Gee

Singapore's rapid economic development has been attributed to favourable demographics, with large cohorts of the population receiving education and then participating in the workforce. the growth in labour product associated with demographic transition includes a gender component, which was reflected in a 46-fold increase in the rate of female educational attainment at the tertiary level, and a two-fold increase in overall labour force participation rate. This paper evaluates how changing gender and education profiles contribute to Singapore's ESR using Das Gupta's decomposition technique, estimating the relative contributions of both gender and education to Singapore's ESR. This builds on earlier work understanding the ESR change from HQA changes alone, providing an estimate of the gender contribution to Singapore's demographic dividend.