Originally posted by PachelbeL_20:
I find the government's stand to ask singaporeans to reproduce very contradicting and "turning off".
Firstly, due to national service, a guy will finish his university education at the age of 25 (assuming he is only doin a 3 yr degree course and he went to jc). After graduation, he will only find a job that pays at most 2k. How will he find sufficient funds to get married and buy a home for his new family? So if he decides to get married at a later date, he will be facing medical problems of having a child. What I am referring to here is that women will generally have more problems having babies at a older age. So how is the government going to help singaporeans overcome this race against time and age?
Next, i will like the members of the paliment, especially the one that claims it is OUR DUTY to reproduce, tell us how many childern does he have? And hopefully he can think in the shoes of the not so rich, average singaporean. I mean if we have the financial need, i believe everyone will love to have a child to call their own. But if conditions don't permit, having a child at a wrong time will be finding trouble, as his upbringing will be affected too.
Therefore , i hope the government will think in an average singaporean's shoes. We are human beings, not superman,
The trouble is PachelbeL_20 is that Singapore is fast becoming a metropolitican city much akin to New York City. Whereby, the ideals is more tuned towards the individual than family values.
In Singapore during the 1960-70s , it was tradition that the girl would get married around 18 while the guy should get married by 21. During those days, the guy could still be schooling but will live under his parents roof.
However, as the decades passed, this age limit grew as well... girls became more demanding and wanted to live outside together while the guys wanted to work on their careers. Then, came NS in the late 60s and early 70s, the gap grew even larger. But still some guys would get married before enlisting into the army for NS, nowadays that is almost unheard of. Then, came the policy to have only 2 kids, this made families smaller, its nature for people who have lived in a smaller family to want to have equal or less number of children in their own family. Thus, the strain on family numbers.
To answer your question for the member of parliment who gave that crude comment was Dr Ong Seh Hong (Aljunied GRC) who has 3 kids of his own.
In my personal opinion, Singapore is lacking growth in the economy. Part to do with our low birth rate in recent years. In order to have a condusive economy, we do need to have a steady birth rate to replace old/retired workers from the work force. Having a steady increase in population, will make way for new buildings(housing, malls, offices) and for more businesses to be created.
In order to increase the birth rates, the govt should look into offering support and help to those families in need. My other posts suggests that increasing child care centres would not help lower the costs but increase the fees in the centres as more workers are recruited. Providing key incentives to procreate, will help increase the birth rate. The main key word is costs.
Another article mentioned on Monday's ST about abortions, and how someone barked about disallowing abortions. Boy will that really destroy families.
