National Day Rally 2026: Existential Challenges and Economic Considerations

Although fertility has declined across Singapore, and Malay-headed households too are becoming smaller (from an average of 3.7 persons in 2020 to 3.5 in 2025), Malay residents continue to record a higher TFR than the national average. They maintain the largest household sizes on average among the three major ethnic groups, with about 25.1% of Malay households having five or more family members⁴. Even with these in mind, Malay TFR still rate remains well below the replacement level, reflecting the broader demographic challenge facing Singapore.

Several newly announced family measures have particular significance for our community. One notable change revolves around the number of days of childcare leave for parents. Working parents will stand to receive eight days of childcare with one child aged 12 and below, ten days with two children in that age range, and 12 days with three or more. Previously, the amount of afforded childcare leave was determined largely by the age of the youngest child rather than the number of children. This change recognises that caregiving responsibilities are cumulative – parents with multiple children require not only greater financial support, but also more time for each child.  

This is salient as families continue to balance negotiations between caregiving and employment. In RIMA’s recently concluded seminar, the Community-in-Review (CIR) 2026, discussions on the lower economic participation of Malay women compared with Malay men and the wider resident female population⁵ brought into sharper focus on the relationship between caregiving and the career progression of women. As working women transition into motherhood, especially as women give birth at later ages, many continue to navigate career demands alongside gendered expectations of caregiving. During CIR 2026, the CEO of the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) Ms Koh Yan Ping highlighted that women are at least five time more likely than men to take charge of childcare and housework duties, even with full-time jobs⁶. Providing more childcare leave can therefore help parents remain economically active while meeting their caregiving responsibilities. Still, the effectiveness of such provisions ultimately depends on whether parents feel like they are able to use them. In 2024, 54% of fathers and 59% of mothers took childcare leave, suggesting that providing additional leave is only one part of enabling parents to balance work and caregiving responsibilities⁷. Here, employers have an equally important role in ensuring that taking time to care for one’s family does not come at the expense of career progression. 

The same principle of recognising how responsibilities grow and compound with larger family sizes can be seen in the announcements of more financial and housing support for families. Each child will receive support from birth through adolescence, including the Baby Gift, MediSave and Child Development Account (CDA) grants, annual Child Credits, and education-related top-ups. As Prime Minister Wong observed in his speech, while every child receives the same support, families with more children will naturally receive more overall.  

However, “more support” should be understood alongside greater needs. More children also mean household resources being shared more widely among more people, alongside higher expenses for food, transport, education, and care. While national measures provide an important foundation of support, families may face needs that differ according to their circumstances. Community initiatives such as the Adopt a Family and Youth Scheme (AFYS) by AMP Singapore or Project Dian by M³ can complement these measures by identifying needs on the ground and addressing gaps that may not be fully captured by broad-based support.  

The housing measures announced at the rally illustrate the balance between greater support and greater needs. Under the new measures, first-timer families will receive an additional Built-to-Order (BTO) public housing ballot chance for every child they have. While this will definitely benefit larger families seeking a home, greater access does not necessarily address affordability. Larger families often need larger homes, which often also costs more. While 86.6% of Malay-headed households are owner-occupied in 2025, up from 85.6% in 2020⁸, the relatively high rate of home ownership brings another question into focus – whether growing families can continue to afford homes that adequately meet their needs.  

As housing support becomes more responsive to family size, it is also worth considering the diversity of families raising children. Single-parent households, for instance, may face different housing and financial circumstances from two-parent households. Supporting families should therefore account not only for the number of children they have, but also for the different circumstances in which those children are being raised. If gaps persist in addressing challenges that single parent households face, it could affect the well-being of single parents and have longer-term implications for their children⁹. 

The new measures ultimately signal a broader shift from simply encouraging births towards making family life more sustainable. Government support can ease financial and caregiving pressures, but families also depend on supportive employers, accessible services, and shared caregiving at home. Additionally, it is key to note that the mentioned gaps in support are faced by all families in similar contexts due to the cumulative nature of caregiving and how much it can be supplied or demanded per household, regardless of ethnicity or culture. For the Malay/Muslim community, these measures provide an opportunity to consider how our own institutions, workplaces, and community networks can complement national efforts in responding to the realities faced by families. The resilience of families should not be measured only by how well they cope with pressures, but also by whether the society around them helps make raising a family sustainable. 

Strong Roots and Identity 

In his Malay speech, Prime Minister Wong applauded the “spirit and pride” of the Malay community in their culture and identity. He described the Malay language as “an integral part of Singapore’s identity”, adding that it would be valuable for Singaporeans to learn Malay and better appreciate Malay culture. The speech then proceeded to frame this facet of identity as an economic asset: strong connections to mother tongue language and culture could “open up more opportunities for our people and Singapore businesses”, and businesses could draw on the community’s “cultural and language expertise” as they expand into regional markets.  

This economic framing reflects long-standing pragmatic approaches to cultural heritage in Singapore. In 2020, Dr Kevin Tan wrote, “(Singapore) prides itself on its pragmatic approach to policy-making [...] In such a milieu, ‘heritage’ is viewed more as a commodity to be bargained over than a common good in itself.”¹⁰ The value of heritage warrants discussion especially in the context of concerns about preserving a distinct and authentic Singaporean local identity amid rapid changes, apparent in commercial spaces¹¹ and the closure of longstanding heritage businesses like Warong Nasi Pariaman¹² .

Culture is not in opposition to economic aspirations – in fact, economic sustainability is important for cultural continuity. Recently, an article titled “Hawker Culture in Singapore: Preserving Heritage While Reinventing the Future” published by the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SMCCI) pointed out how thriving businesses and new generations of entrepreneurs can spread and preserve culture, encouraging entrepreneurs to combine heritage with capability development, digital adoption, and industry collaboration¹³. The author, Nabilah Herman, wrote: “When hawker culture is recognised as a national asset, the businesses that sustain it deserve equal attention and support.”  

With the economic value of culture in mind, if cultural preservation and economic vitality is to coexist, the path forward requires models where commerce serves community rather than the other way around. This then leads to two questions: who captures the wealth generated by a community’s culture, and how do we ensure that this pursuit does not hollow out the moral values that gave that culture its soul in the first place?  

Alternative ownership models, such as the proposed “Building Community Wealth through Multi-stakeholder Community-Owned Enterprises” model¹⁴, for instance, could be a strong approach. Such ideas shift attention from simply generating wealth to determining who owns and leads it, who participates in it, and how its returns are distributed. If value is created by a community’s culture, such as through language and art, it stands to reason that this value should be shared within the community itself. Existing ground-up initiatives like Neibr¹⁵, a community-powered marketplace hosting Muslim-owned homebased businesses across Singapore, demonstrate another way in which community members can retain a share of the value they create. 

These approaches espouse values that solve a “central dilemma of Malay entrepreneurship”¹⁶, or the moral acceptability of high profit margins in commercial transactions, given that Malay/Muslims tend to hold kinship and interpersonal relationships at such high value. In 2023, then-Executive Director of the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry Azrulnizam Shah Sohaimi noted that entrepreneurship actually held two core approaches that the community resonated with: firstly, economic empowerment (“and with it, social mobility”); secondly, the opportunity to serve others while earning their keep in life. He wrote, “Both these factors are something closely integrated in the fabric of our community, and with that, the spirit of entrepreneurship will continue to be strong.”¹⁷  

How economic value can be generated from culture without diminishing its social, cultural, and communal meaning? Culture, faith, values, business, career, work, wealth, asset-building – these narratives and their links are points of discussion that continue to brew within the community. This seemingly passing point made in the National Day Rally speech serves as an illustration of the deeper ongoing conversation between commerce and values, a lively discussion that may shape Singapore’s future social fabric.

Conclusion

In this article, addressing both the physical and cultural lived realities of Malay/Muslim individuals and asking questions such as “Can families accumulate sufficient resources?” or “Can cultural and economic assets be transferred to the next generation?” reminds us that moving forward as a nation requires a holistic perspective paired with a whole-of-society effort. For the Malay/Muslim community, continued collaboration between different organisations or at the community-level can help to ensure that no one is left behind as we build a stronger nation together.