since january 2010, the government in singapore has allowed the double-barrelling of race classification by parents of different races when they register their children. the first of the two races should be the child's dominant race. so a european father and chinese mother might register their son as "european-chinese" instead of "eurasian". a malay father and european mother might register their daughter as "malay-european" instead of "eurasian". if these two children grow up and as adults marry each other and have a child of their own, that child (the grandchild of the two couples) could be registered by its parents as "european-malay" taking the dominant race of the classifications of both parents "european-chinese" and "malay-european". as another example, a child with an indian father and eurasian mother would previously have been registered as "indian". with the new system, the child can be identified officially as "indian-eurasian" or "eurasian-indian" depending on what the parents choose. the new form of race classification will be reflected in national registration identity cards. the double-barrelling of race will give parents in mixed-race marriages even more flexibility when deciding their child's race, said assistant professor ho peng kee, the junior minister who announced the change in parliament. he explained the need for flexibility stemmed from the increasing diversity of singapore's demographics, with the inflow of immigrants and more locals marrying foreigners. on the need to identify a dominant race, ho said: "societal trends suggest that a child of mixed parentage tends to identify more closely with one of the two races."