SINGAPORE: In yet another effort to promote baby making in Singapore, the government has given married fathers at least one week paid vacation to be with their newborns. While critics say that is little time to make having a child worthwhile, it is a step in a new direction for a country struggling to maintain its population. Currently only dads working for companies that offer paid paternity leave get such a benefit. But such leave will soon become mandatory, and will extend to fathers who are self-employed. Announcing the change on Monday, which comes after years of lobbying by pro-family groups, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said it sends a signal that fathers should be more involved in raising their children. The leave will be given to fathers of children born on or after May 1 this year. Its value is capped at $2,500, including Central Provident Fund contributions. Singapore citizens are not having children. According to the United States intelligence agency, the CIA, the country ranks dead last across the world in fertility rates. The result, the government here fears, is that it could threaten the economic stability built up over the past few decades. With the economic growth rate to drop to near one percent this year, the government is worried that if Singaporeans don't start having more babies, the city-state could face a downturn that might last more than a year or two. The government has already begun discussing means of boosting marriage rates and couples having babies in an effort to grow. One of the ideas is to implement paternity leave to entice couples to have more babies. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, during a National Day rally speech said his government was looking at paid paternity leave for husbands. He also said that there were initiatives on the table that would reduce the medical costs of having children and had put experts in charge of re-examining a Medisave account for children at birth. “Many Singaporeans explained their concerns about having children. Recently, I talked to one young lady – a teacher. She has four kids, young ones, from the age of 14 to age of one," he said. “She has gone back to work as a teacher and she appreciates the schemes we have for working mothers – paid maternity leave, flexi-work arrangements and so on. “But she said, ‘if I took all these schemes, then I am pushing my work to my colleagues and other teachers and further more when it comes to assessment time, my head of department and my principal will not know what grade to give me. Even if you give me more of these leave and perks, it will not help me with my career', which is important to her. “So I asked her what was the one thing that would encourage Singaporeans to have children. She said ‘improve work-life balance'. But then she added ‘but that is not in your power to give'. “She understands we want work-life balance, we encourage people to have work-life balance but finally it's the attitudes of the employers, it's the attitudes of the individuals who are pursuing the careers, social norms – everybody is working, so I have to work long hours too, and so we are stuck in that position." According to a government poll on the feedback portal Reach published in mid-August, some 88 percent of respondents agreed that having children was vital for Singapore's future. The belief was that if they did not have more children, “original" Singapore citizens would not be enough to maintain the majority in the island country. It came only days after former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew called on Singapore couples to get married and have more children. With Singapore's birth rate dropping dramatically, to one of the lowest levels in the world, Lee's comments come as a debate over how to maintain the country's population hits the city-state. Speaking at a National Day dinner last fall for Tanjong Pagar GRC and Tiong Bahru residents, he said Singapore “will fold up" if there are no original citizens left to form the majority. Many viewed his comments as “anti-immigration" and even some online users called Lee's statement “racist" against incoming Singaporeans. Lee also said that migrants are needed as a temporary solution. The trend of declining birth rates must also be reversed. “If there are no new citizens, new PRs will settle Singapore's social ethos, social spirit and social norms," he said. According to The Straits Times, Lee said Singaporeans not marrying and not having children has become a “national problem" even though an individual's lifestyle and marital plans are personal decisions. In his speech, Lee also stated some of the current demographic trends in Singapore. The Chinese had the lowest fertility rate in 2011 at 1.08, he argued. “Successive generations of the largest ethnic group in Singapore will halve in size in the next 18 to 20 years if this continues," he argued. Indians had a fertility rate of 1.09 while Malays had a fertility rate of 1.64. All three ethnic groups have fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1. Lee also noted that “around 44 percent of Singaporean men and 31 percent of women aged between 30 and 34 are single." BN
