Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Singaporeans under 21 years of Age Residing in Singapore with a Non-PR Foreign Parent by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law

Question:

MP Ms Kuik Shiao-Yin: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) how many Singaporeans who are under 21 years of age reside in Singapore currently with a foreign parent who has not been given PR status; (b) over the last five years, how many of these non-PR foreign parents are (i) women (ii) sole supporters of their Singaporean child, having been separated, divorced or widowed from their citizen spouse and (iii) persons who have left Singapore with their Singaporean child to reside elsewhere following the expiry of their Long-Term Visit Pass or other visit passes.

Answer:

1. As at 30 June 2016, about 10,000 Singapore Citizen (SC) children under the age of 21 had foreign parents who were residing in Singapore on either a Long-Term Visit Pass (LTVP) or a Work Pass.

2 Based on ICA's records from 2012 to 2015, there were around 14,000 unique non-PR foreign parents with SC children under the age of 21 who applied for LTVPs. We do not have the 2011 data on hand because the reports were in hardcopies and did not allow us to perform the analysis needed to extract this data.

3 Of these 14,000 parents, around 13,000 of them were female. Among this group, only 1% or 148 of them were widowed, divorced or separated. Only three did not eventually qualify for long-term stay through an immigration or employment facility. As at 31 Aug 2016, the SC children of these three were still residing in Singapore.