Was reading the papers a couple of days back and I came across an article talking about Singapore's low birth rate (again). According to the author, incentives given by the government to encourage wedded couples to have children are really missing the elephant in the corner. He reckons women here want their husbands to help out more in housework and child raising.
I suppose having the husband to help out with housework and child raising is a good thing. However, we are still missing the elephant, or rather, the government pretends the elephant does not exist. Notice how our government handles the issue of low birth rate?
We say: raising a child is expensive, so we got to give ourselves time to be financially ready.
The government: introduces baby bonus, and all sorts of monetary incentives to encourage people to have more babies.
We say: both of us (husband and wife) need to work, so we do not have time to look after our children.
The government: talks about building more affordable infant care/ child care/ after school care centres so mothers can continue working without leaving the workforce. Oh, and don't forget the grandparents. They can help look after the kids as well.
We say: long working hours makes both of us (husband and wife) tired. At the end of the day, we just want to visit dreamland, not make babies. Weekends? Nah, those are for us to recuperate from the fatigue accumulated over the week.
The government: *silence*
The underlying message from the silence? The economy still takes precedence over birth rate. Working hours cannot be shortened. In fact, it is indecent even to leave work on time.
As long as the government refuses to hold this elephant by its tusks, no amount of policies are going to make a statistically significant improvement in the birth rate here. Nuff said.
