Despite long term occupancy, Singapore excludes 29% of the population as non-residents for the purpose of resident statistics.

[10][11] Singlish, a local creole and accent, is often used in colloquial speech between all native races of Singapore.

[16] The first official census taken in January 1824 showed that the resident population of Singapore had grown to 10,683: 4,580 Malays, 3,317 Chinese, 1,925 Bugis, 756 natives of India, 74 Europeans, 16 Armenians, and 15 Arabs.

[22] Many of the early migrant workers from China and India did not intend to settle permanently to raise their families in Singapore; they worked to send back remittance to their families back home, and would return to China or India after they had earned enough money.

Change in social attitude in the modern era also meant that Chinese women were freer to emigrate from China, and the sex ratio began to normalise.

[20] This gradual normalisation of sex ratio led to an increase in the number of native births.

However, a lower rate of natural growth in population and the need for low-skill labour resulted in a deliberate shift in policy by the Singapore government to allow more foreigners to live and work in the country, and net migration increased in the 1980–1990 period to nearly 200,000.

[15] Due to the continued low birth rate, amongst other reasons, the Singapore government has varied its immigration policy over the years.

Birth rates in the 1960s were still perceived as high by the government; on average, a baby was born every 11 minutes in 1965.

In 1966, KKH delivered 39835 babies, earning it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for "largest number of births in a single maternity facility" for ten years.

Because there was generally a massive shortage of beds in that era, mothers with routine deliveries were discharged from hospitals within 24 hours.

[26] In September 1965 the Minister for Health, Yong Nyuk Lin, submitted a white paper to Parliament, recommending a "Five-year Mass Family Planning programme" that would reduce the birth rate to 20.0 per thousand individuals by 1970.

[27] By 1970, the Stop at Two campaign was firmly established, implementing incentives, disincentives and public exhortation to discourage families from having more than two children.

After 1975, the fertility rate declined below replacement level, in a sign that Singapore was undergoing the demographic transition.

[27] In 1986, the government reversed its population policy—except its stance on low-income, lowly-educated women—and initiated the Have Three or More (if you can afford it) campaign, offering cash and public administration incentives to have children.

[28] The Singapore government has launched several highly publicised attempts to raise the fertility rate and increase awareness of the negative effects of an ageing population, the elderly (65 and above) had constituted 9.9% of its population in 2012; this proportion is still significantly lower than that of many other developed nations, such as the United States and Japan.

[35] The motion was passed[36] albeit after amendments made to leave out "population policy" and add focus on infrastructure and transport development.

The White Paper was heavily criticised and panned by opposition parties and government critics.

[37] Member of Parliament Low Thia Khiang of the Workers' Party of Singapore had criticised current measures of increasing the fertility rate, claiming that this would lead to an increase of a higher cost of living and discourage young couples from having more kids.

[15] However, the fertility of the Chinese population declined sharply after the post-war boom, while that of the Malays remained high.

There was therefore a corresponding percentage increase of the Malay population, which rose to 14.5% in 1967 after a long period of continual decline.

[49] The population profile of the country changed dramatically after the relaxation of immigration policy, with a huge increase in the number of transient migrant workers.

Official figures show that the number of foreigners on short-term permits (termed 'non-residents') has grown from 30,900 in 1970 to 797,900 in 2005, which translate roughly to a 24-fold increase in 35 years, or from 1% of the population in 1970 to 18.3% in 2005.

[16] Early census figures show a long influx of migrant workers into the country, initially comprising mostly Malays, but shortly thereafter followed by the Chinese.

Large number of Chinese migrants started to enter Singapore just months after it became a British settlement, and they were predominantly male.

In 1826, official census figures give a total population of 13,750, with 6,088 Chinese, 4,790 Malays, 1,242 Bugis, 1,021 Indians from Bengal (244) and the Coromandel Coast (777), smaller number of Javanese (267), Europeans (87) and other peoples.

[61] Many of the migrants from China in the 19th century came to work on the pepper and gambier plantations, with 11,000 Chinese immigrants recorded in one year.

After dropping from a peak of 60% in the early years of Singapore, the Malay population settled within the range of 11 and 16% in the first half of the 20th century, while Indians hovered between 7 and just over 9% in the same period.

The colloquial English-based creole used in everyday life is often referred to as Singlish, spoken by all races of Singapore.

Taoism was overtaken as the second-most prominent religion in the 2000 census among the Chinese as more have increasingly described themselves as Buddhists rather than Taoist.