In the 1930s, only an affluent minority of people arriving in Singapore were tourists who had come for leisure. The majority were poor migrants who flocked to Singapore to find work. In 1933, the government introduced the Aliens Ordinance Act to control immigration due to the Great Depression. New immigrants had to pay a fee of $5 to obtain a landing permit, which had to be exchanged a month later for a Certificate of Admission. By the 1930s, more women were migrating to Singapore and an increasing number of immigrants began to marry and settle in Singapore and Malaya.
