In his National Day Rally speech on 17 Aug, PM Lee spent a considerable amount of time addressing the issue of Singapore’s low birth rate and the measures proposed to alleviate the problem.
As is becoming the usual PAP practice, PM Lee proposed to throw money at the problem — $1.6 billion spent a year or 0.6% of GDP, to be more precise. This includes the $700 million per year required to fund two new initiatives mentioned during the Rally itself: providing financial support to lower the cost of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), and extending most of the incentives like tax reliefs, childcare subsidies, and so on, to the fifth and the subsequent child.
DPM Wong Kan Seng gave more details on the new measures on Wednesday, which include:
Two Straits Times forum letters raise the non-monetary aspects of the issue. For example, in the letter entitled “Tackle the problem, not the symptoms” published on 20 Aug, Mr Thomas Ling wondered aloud if the Government was “barking up the wrong tree regarding the issue of our falling population”.
He said: “Our pursuit of economic excellence and rewards in the past 40 years has resulted in a new breed of young Singaporeans who hold different values about life”.
I agree with him. Nowadays, Singaporeans are more individualistic and materialistic, no thanks in part to the rapidly increasing cost of living, over-crowding, the decrease in personal space, and the fast paced of life. And this is a global phenomenon, prevalent in the developed world. Look at Japan, for instance.
Thomas Ling said: “While much of the blame has been pinned on our ‘Stop At Two’ policy in the 70s, the truth has to do with changing lifestyles rather than the success of that policy.”
My take is that the ‘Stop At Two’ policy was shortsighted. It was not just a successful policy, but one that overshot its intended target. As a result, the decline in Singapore’s birth rate has been artificially accelerated over the years, and now the Government imports vast numbers of foreign talents in an attempt to make up the numbers.
Thomas Ling also said: “While monetary incentives help in some way towards boosting the birth rate, its effectiveness is suspect because the underlying problem is the changed attitude towards marriage and family life.” I fully agree with this.
And I would add that the Government’s singular focus on economic progress without adequate attention paid to nurturing a more open society, and a society that pays attention to the intangibles in life such as culture, values, and a community spirit, is also to blame for the current state of affairs.
The issue of low birth rates is a personal, social, and community issue as much as it is a monetary issue. The Government should realize that merely throwing money at the problem is akin to treating the symptoms but not the underlying causes.
The ST letter entitled “Growing up in Singapore - Is it the right place” written by Mrs Eileen Aung-Thwin and published on 20 Aug addresses another concern: Are Singaporeans’ poor social graces making this country an unconducive place for children to grow up in?
Eileen Aung-Thwin cites the example of a letter written recently from a young undergraduate who asked for her future employer not to saddle her with “grunt work” which should be left to her secretary, whom she expects to come with her first job.
Eileen Aung-Thwin says, “The sense of entitlement and selfishness demonstrated by that young woman may have been extreme but I do think that the attitude is commonplace.”
She also asks, “… parents play a big part in how children turn out, but we cannot underestimate external factors such as society’s influence, peer pressure and the education system. While our education system helps students excel in academics, what sort of values does it promote?”
I think Eileen Aung-Thwin’s concerns are very legitimate. Some parents might be deterred from raising children in a country where social graces and values are lacking. This problem, again, cannot be solved by merely throwing money at potential child-rearing couples. It goes back to the root of how our society is governed and how our young are educated.
In its singular pursuit of material gain, the PAP Government has neglected all these intangibles, and now they are coming back to haunt us.
On a more down-to-earth front, I am also concerned that the needs of employers are not being adequately looked into. Employers are expected to give more benefits and more rights to working mothers, but has the Government considered the burden they may be carrying as a result?
For example, what criteria would the Government use to assess whether an employer has fired a pregnant woman “for no good reason”? Such criteria must invariably be subjective. How would an external party determine whether the retrenchment of a pregnant employee was due to genuine discrimination, or due to other factors that are not the fault of the employer such as poor work attitude on the part of the lady employee?
While the Government’s recommendation that working mums be treated fairly at the workplace is admirable, one wonders if employers would invariably be given the short end of the stick.
The Government should realize that bureaucratic decision made at the top, while sounding noble, often filter down to unfair and unjust practices at the bottom.
The issue of discrimination at the workplace is itself a highly complex one. For example, discrimination against pregnant women can be more subtle than outrightly retrenching them, for instance, being shunned by friends or being given unfair poor annual appraisals by their immediate supervisors. This tangled web of workplace discrimination cannot be simply legislated away.
In short, Singapore’s chronic problem of low birth rates is not unique, but experienced in many developed nations as well. The Government has decided to throw a lot of money at it, but what is needed is a far more holistic approach that takes into account the various intangibles in life.
As is becoming the usual PAP practice, PM Lee proposed to throw money at the problem — $1.6 billion spent a year or 0.6% of GDP, to be more precise. This includes the $700 million per year required to fund two new initiatives mentioned during the Rally itself: providing financial support to lower the cost of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), and extending most of the incentives like tax reliefs, childcare subsidies, and so on, to the fifth and the subsequent child.
DPM Wong Kan Seng gave more details on the new measures on Wednesday, which include:
- Tax relief: for example, child tax relief for parents will extend beyond the fourth child. Also, for each child, parents can claim for $4,000, instead of $2,000. The tax relief for a handicapped child has also gone up to $5,500, from $3,500.
- Bigger baby bonus: $4,000 for first and second child instead of $3,000
- More paid maternity leave: Paid maternity leave will go up from 12 to 16 weeks for mothers of Singaporean children born from Jan 1 next year.
- Greater protection for pregnant women: They will get maternity leave benefits, if fired without good cause within the last six months of pregnancy. These benefits will also be given if she is laid off in the last three months of her pregnancy.
- Co-funding of in-vitro fertilisation treatment: the Government will from next month co-pay fertility treatments for women under age 40 but the treatment must be at public hospitals. Couples can receive 50 per cent funding - up to $3,000 - for each cycle of Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART) treatments, for a maximum of three cycles.
- Increased subsidies at childcare and infantcare centres: working mothers will get double the amount of monthly subsidies at childcare centres, from $150 to $300. At infantcare centres, their subsidies will also go up, from $400 to $600 a month.
Two Straits Times forum letters raise the non-monetary aspects of the issue. For example, in the letter entitled “Tackle the problem, not the symptoms” published on 20 Aug, Mr Thomas Ling wondered aloud if the Government was “barking up the wrong tree regarding the issue of our falling population”.
He said: “Our pursuit of economic excellence and rewards in the past 40 years has resulted in a new breed of young Singaporeans who hold different values about life”.
I agree with him. Nowadays, Singaporeans are more individualistic and materialistic, no thanks in part to the rapidly increasing cost of living, over-crowding, the decrease in personal space, and the fast paced of life. And this is a global phenomenon, prevalent in the developed world. Look at Japan, for instance.
Thomas Ling said: “While much of the blame has been pinned on our ‘Stop At Two’ policy in the 70s, the truth has to do with changing lifestyles rather than the success of that policy.”
My take is that the ‘Stop At Two’ policy was shortsighted. It was not just a successful policy, but one that overshot its intended target. As a result, the decline in Singapore’s birth rate has been artificially accelerated over the years, and now the Government imports vast numbers of foreign talents in an attempt to make up the numbers.
Thomas Ling also said: “While monetary incentives help in some way towards boosting the birth rate, its effectiveness is suspect because the underlying problem is the changed attitude towards marriage and family life.” I fully agree with this.
And I would add that the Government’s singular focus on economic progress without adequate attention paid to nurturing a more open society, and a society that pays attention to the intangibles in life such as culture, values, and a community spirit, is also to blame for the current state of affairs.
The issue of low birth rates is a personal, social, and community issue as much as it is a monetary issue. The Government should realize that merely throwing money at the problem is akin to treating the symptoms but not the underlying causes.
The ST letter entitled “Growing up in Singapore - Is it the right place” written by Mrs Eileen Aung-Thwin and published on 20 Aug addresses another concern: Are Singaporeans’ poor social graces making this country an unconducive place for children to grow up in?
Eileen Aung-Thwin cites the example of a letter written recently from a young undergraduate who asked for her future employer not to saddle her with “grunt work” which should be left to her secretary, whom she expects to come with her first job.
Eileen Aung-Thwin says, “The sense of entitlement and selfishness demonstrated by that young woman may have been extreme but I do think that the attitude is commonplace.”
She also asks, “… parents play a big part in how children turn out, but we cannot underestimate external factors such as society’s influence, peer pressure and the education system. While our education system helps students excel in academics, what sort of values does it promote?”
I think Eileen Aung-Thwin’s concerns are very legitimate. Some parents might be deterred from raising children in a country where social graces and values are lacking. This problem, again, cannot be solved by merely throwing money at potential child-rearing couples. It goes back to the root of how our society is governed and how our young are educated.
In its singular pursuit of material gain, the PAP Government has neglected all these intangibles, and now they are coming back to haunt us.
On a more down-to-earth front, I am also concerned that the needs of employers are not being adequately looked into. Employers are expected to give more benefits and more rights to working mothers, but has the Government considered the burden they may be carrying as a result?
For example, what criteria would the Government use to assess whether an employer has fired a pregnant woman “for no good reason”? Such criteria must invariably be subjective. How would an external party determine whether the retrenchment of a pregnant employee was due to genuine discrimination, or due to other factors that are not the fault of the employer such as poor work attitude on the part of the lady employee?
While the Government’s recommendation that working mums be treated fairly at the workplace is admirable, one wonders if employers would invariably be given the short end of the stick.
The Government should realize that bureaucratic decision made at the top, while sounding noble, often filter down to unfair and unjust practices at the bottom.
The issue of discrimination at the workplace is itself a highly complex one. For example, discrimination against pregnant women can be more subtle than outrightly retrenching them, for instance, being shunned by friends or being given unfair poor annual appraisals by their immediate supervisors. This tangled web of workplace discrimination cannot be simply legislated away.
In short, Singapore’s chronic problem of low birth rates is not unique, but experienced in many developed nations as well. The Government has decided to throw a lot of money at it, but what is needed is a far more holistic approach that takes into account the various intangibles in life.