Asia Times: Desperate for a baby boom


	May 02, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Desperate for a baby boom
By Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE - Alarmed by a falling birth rate and its impact on the economy, Singapore badly wants its well-educated, career-oriented women to have more babies.

Already, the government of this affluent city state has set up a high-powered committee to study ways of encouraging Singaporean couples to have at least two children. The 11-member committee, headed by top civil servant Eddie Teo, permanent secretary to the Prime Minister's Office, will look into the reasons and attitudes that hold Singaporeans back from marraige and childbirth - and ways to reverse this trend. ''The committee is in the process of gathering feedback from young people through focus group sessions to get a feel of their aspirations and problems,'' Teo told The Straits Times this week.

In the last decade as Singapore's economy grew and the people became more affluent, the country's birth rate has fallen from 1.92 in 1990 to 1.48 last year. The total fertility rate needs to reach about 2 for a population to replace itself, experts here say. At today's rate, Singapore's population is expected to peak at 3.3 million in 2025, and then start to drop. Currently, the 620 square-kilometer island republic has a population of just over 3 million, and another 1 million foreign expatriates and guest workers.

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said recently that Singapore was planning for a long-term population of 5.5. million by 2040 to keep economic growth ticking.

During a parliamentary debate in March on fertility rates, Community Development Minister Abdullah Tarmugi warned that if Singaporeans have fewer babies, the country will have to rely even more on immigrants. Government MP Dr Wang Kai Yuen went even further. ''A nation that cannot revert its declining birth rate is effectively committing collective suicide,'' he warned. The root of the problem lies in the perceptions of young women toward family life, he argued.

Ironically, the dilemma facing Singapore is a vindication of the arguments put forward by many non-governmental organizations from the developing world at the Cairo population conference in 1994. There, they complained that the conference concentrated too much on birth control methods, rather than on giving women greater access to educational and employment opportunties. Many NGOs argued that if women are better educated and employed, birth rates will naturally come down.

For many young Singaporeans with well-paid professional jobs and career ambitions, child rearing, and even marriage, takes lower priority. ''Generally, Asians keep longer hours at work. If a woman has a successful career, it is likely that her job is demanding and stressful. After a long day's work she wouldn't like to start another job when she steps into the home,'' said Tang Lai-Chee, a single 40-year-old regional financial controller for a multinational media company.

''As a working mother, I always find it tough to get adequate time to sit down and just chat or play with my kids,'' complained Loganthan Rajeswari, a full-time secretary with two school-going children. ''The amount of stress and commitments required in marriage and having children can put off modern Singaporean women from wanting these,'' she added. ''Also importantly, we are living in a very fast-paced lifestyle where there are too many materialistic wants. Starting a family may mean compromising such wants.''

Tang believes that the declining birth rates are due to the high cost of living in Singapore and its demanding education system. ''I have often heard my yuppie friends saying that life will be tough for children at school and even tougher when they grow up, so why bring them to this world?'' she said.

It is widely believed here that the government-appointed committee, which is to finish work by mid-June, will have a tough time framing a soft message to the community to have more babies - without fermenting resentment among 21st century Singaporean womanhood.

Dana Lam-Teo, president of the women's NGO Aware, argues that the root of the problem is societal values and attitudes and the decision to have a baby is a private one between two people. ''Their values and expectations from life come into play,'' she said in an interview. ''The national environment equally plays a part in that decision.''

Lam-Teo argues that the government must come up with more pro-family policies such as a five-day week in the public service, so couples have more time with children; more family-oriented workplace policies such as longer maternity leave and sick-child leave, and quality childcare at the workplace.

Currently, a Singaporean mother is entitled to two months' maternity leave with full pay after childbirth. There are no leave entitlements for the father.

Singapore has been worried about its lowering birth rates since 1983, when then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew drew attention to the increasing number of single graduate women. A slew of pro-baby incentives followed, aimed mainly at graduate women, but with little effect. Then between 1987 to 1990 under the slogan of ''Have Three or More, If You Can Afford It'', a number of budget measures were introduced to induce mothers to have more babies. Yet, it didn't work.

Tang says that what would encourage her to marry and have children is ''if the government changes the educational system and encourages a more creative environment, if Singapore is a more gracious and open-minded society''.

Sociologist Dr Paulin Tay Straughan argues that Singapore's mindset about work and family time needs to change before the downward trend of fertility rates can be reversed. ''Society must recognise the importance of family time,'' she said. ''It cannot be seen as surplus work time.''

Added Dr Straughan: ''While doing overtime at work or working weekends may be productive for the organization, it is depriving the family of the limited time they have together.''

(Inter Press Service)

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