Why is Singapore's Fertility Rate declining?
Singapore needs a replacement fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 to maintain the population in Singapore. Over the years, Singapore has failed to match or better the TFR. Despite the current push by the Government to encourage more births, it has still failed to encourage couples to have more babies.
Here are a few reasons as to why Singaporeans are not having more babies.
1) Cost of giving birth
2) Cost of bringing up the child
3) Worries regarding job security after childbirth
4) Long working hours
Cost of giving birth
While the cost of giving birth in Singapore is heavily subsidized by the Government provided that the mothers are Singaporeans, there are increasing numbers of Singaporean men marrying foreigners, Therefore the costs of giving birth aren't subsidized in these cases. They are forced to pay private rates even though they give birth in the Government hospitals.
Cost of bringing up the child
From milk powder, diapers, to Childcare and nursery to the child going into tertiary, all these costs are creeping upwards faster than an increase in the salaries of the parents. With cost of sending the child to nursery that has increased by more than 30% over the last few years, this is one of the major obstacles deterring couples from having more babies.
Worries regarding job security after childbirth
It is a good idea from the Government, giving 4 months maternal leave in order to encourage couples to have more babies. But with SMEs employing 70% of the workforce, they can't afford to have an employee absent from work for such a long period of time, especially “Key Personnel”. SMEs will employ someone to perform the mother's duties at work, either temporarily or permanently. When the mother returns to the company, she may be made redundant and soon be forced out of work.
Long Working Hours
When a couple has been working long hours, they will be too tired to conceive, let alone take care of the baby. As majority of Singaporeans are PME, with no OT pay, they are required to work long hours in order to complete their assignments/work. There are instances where employee work from 9am till 3am next day. With these working hours, do you think they would be thinking of having babies?
Singapore Justice Party would like to offer some solutions which the Government can consider.
1) Re-looking into cost of giving birth. Encourage couples to have babies without worrying of cost of giving birth. We would strongly encourage the Government to give 100% subsidy (including foreign wife with Singaporean Child) on this issue.
2) Government to set up factories locally or overseas to mass produce milk powder and diapers. With little or no profit from it, the government can help couples to lower their expenses from having babies.
3) Encourage elderly to stay with the couples. The elderly can help to take care of the baby while the couple is out at work. In these instances, it will help to lower demand for nurseries, thereby lowering the couple's expenses. To facilitate this, we hope that the Government will support this movement with a top-up to the elderly person's Medisave account.
4) Maternal leave to revert to two months. One is to give the mother enough rest while ensuring SME activity disruption is kept to the minimum.
5) Better protection for the PMEs with regard to the number of hours they can be made to clock.
We hope that the Government will seriously consider implementing the above recommendations to improve the fertility rate. This will in turn gradually decrease our country's dependence on foreign labour..
Singapore Justice Party
*Article first appeared on https://www.facebook.com/justicepartysingapore/posts/1033718119973471