Singapore tackles finances and culture to avert a demographic crisis

Tiny Singapore is throwing cash and incentives at its citizens to avoid a long-term demographic crisis, but it may take many years before the level of success becomes clear.

The city-state recently unveiled a series of new measures aimed at removing obstacles to having children, including a promise of over S$60,000 ($47,100) to support every citizen child from birth to age 17 in what is seen as its largest effort yet to encourage its citizens to have more babies.

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong described the effort as "more than incremental improvements or changes to individual schemes. We want to make a fundamental shift in how we support families."

One challenge for policy makers, however, is that success on many measures won't show up immediately.

"It is a very slow, slow iceberg to turn around...It will take time. It'll take a few decades to see a little bit of change," Kalapana Vignehsa, senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, told CNBC.

However, the new measures are "a total departure from what we have had previously," and "starting to provide the financial support is the easiest of the many difficult things to do," she said.

During Singapore's National Day Rally a week ago, commonly seen as the most important policy speech of the year, Wong explained that Singapore's current measures are concentrated around the birth of a child, but the government, with the new measures, want to support parents more consistently while they raise their children.

The incentive package includes lower childcare fees, more parental leave time and elevated chances to get sought-after public housing.