A research paper on conscription in European countries was recently conducted by Panu Poutaara and Andreas Wagener. Their work “Ending Military Conscription” conclude the following:
“By postponing, interrupting or even discouraging higher education and entry into the labor market, conscription also has a negative effect on the accumulation of human capital.
At the macro level, the disruption of human capital investments by military conscription translates into lower stocks of human capital, reduced labor productivity and substantial losses in GDP.
From 1960 to 2000, GDP growth rates in OECD countries with conscription were lower by up to a quarter percentage point than in countries with all-volunteer forces.
This is remarkably large given that military expenditures or the size of the military labor force per se do not seem to exert any systematic effect on GDP and its growth.”
For countries within the OECD sphere, their economies are generally more diversified than that of the Singaporean economy. This is because there are non human-intensive industries - such as farming and industrial factories - which exist there but not here.
If conscription costs them 0.25% in growth, how much more will it cost us?
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* This was a status update from an ongoing petition to reduce National Service by Tan Kin Lian
Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Petition-to-reduce-National-Service/1450910421794913?fref=ts