Talk:Demographics of Singapore
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This article has a contradiction:
"Malay is the national language, but Chinese, English, and Tamil also are official languages. English is the language of administration and also is widely used in the professions, businesses, and schools."
and then later:
"The only official language of Singapore is English. No other languages are official. Not even Tamil, despite what you may have heard."
Especially the last section sounds POV and should in my opinion be removed in any case. -- MartijnFaassen
The POV-sounding sentence above was put in by an anonymous user, replacing an earlier version that said there are four official languages. The main article on Singapore says four official languages, so that's what I'll believe. I just changed back to the original version. Isomorphic 01:52, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
[edit] use census 2000 and Singstat figures with care!
I would like to remind here that official population figures from Singstat refer to RESIDENT population, and do not include 18.3% of Singapore population!!
In this article, most figures are given under the generic term "singapore population" though figures actually refer to RESIDENT population only, while there is NO data available for the non-resident population, except their number: 798,000 in 2005, meaning 18.3% of the population.
In other words, almost everytime a breakdown is given, it actually refers to a selected part of the population. And might give an inaccurate idea to readers.
Why is it important? If you go to Singapore you will fast notice large numbers of non-Chinese (nor malay) workers on the streets, building constructions, etc. You will also notice westerners and japanese, and on sundays you will see hundreds of Philippino maids on Orchard road. You might go to Golden Mile Complex and find yourself in the middle of hundreds of ethnic Thais. Those are all foreigners and will probably individually leave the country, but they are always around as Singapore needs them... and they represent 18.3% of Singapore population, that counts! However, figures are repeated inaccurately again and again in books, articles, documents...
For example, it is just NOT correct to state that "77% of Singapore population are ethnic Chinese". Nobody except Immigration/Singstat could give the exact number, but anybody in Singapore can guess that a big majority of non-residents, if not all, are NOT ethnic Chinese... If you consider that indian or bangladeshi workers represent HALF of non-residents, then you would have 13% of the total population being indian... Another example is religion; I found usual figures for residents, though the reality of the entire population is different: among non-residents, Buddhists are probably a minority, with larger numbers of muslims.
Also, the RESIDENT population itself includes foreigners, who are granted the "Permanent Resident" status. It is important to understand that the difference between the PR in the resident population is only an administrative category away from the foreigners in non-resident population, even though in theory residents are long-term inhabitants. Tlanson 19:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
