Jakarta –
The fertility rate in Singapore will fall below 1 for the first time in 2023, to 0.97. In fact, ideally a total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman is needed to maintain the population.
In a poll conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), the two main reasons why citizens of the Lion Country don’t want to have children are costs and stress.
This is despite the government implementing new policies over the past decade to make childcare more affordable. The new budget introduces additional fee caps on government-supported preschools, and further cuts are scheduled for 2026.
The goal is to make preschool costs comparable to the combined costs of primary school and after-school care.
Even so, parents complain that they should be doing more.
“We still don’t have equal parental leave for mothers and fathers. And what we do have is inadequate in the context of the crucial first 18 months of a child’s life and the context of dual careers. Free education and healthcare are also not a feature of our system, ” said one of the residents there, quoted by Channel News Asia.
There is no way to know that fertility rates will not fall even more sharply, without policy intervention. However, policies that ease the burden of being a parent are not enough.
Need Wider Support
Dr Kalpana Vignehsa, senior researcher at the Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore, believes that simply convincing parents that economic support is available will not increase fertility rates in the long term.
However, this support is important because fertility rates would likely fall more quickly without it, and this could reinforce the necessary attitudinal changes.
Making education and health services more affordable can reduce uncertainty. Likewise, equalizing parental leave across genders and providing incentives for men to be more involved points to women’s concerns underlying the gender gap regarding the desire to marry and parent.
“But in an environment where parents feel the constant burden of optimizing their children’s experiences for uncertain gain, the role of parent will continue to feel like a sacrifice that needs to be strengthened to the maximum. Public policy has a role to play in addressing economic conditions and the collective psyche necessary to encourage child care,” he said.
“Taking on the responsibility of raising children in a complex and uncertain world is perhaps the most underrated and highly generative human endeavor. Without it, population renewal will require drastic social change,” he concluded.
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(naf/naf)
2024-03-02 23:30:41
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