to have or not to have?

Something serious for a change.

We had a guest lecturer come to class today, and talked about population policies in Singapore. As most well-off countries with declining birth rates, Singapore is encouraging its citizens to have more babies. The lecturer presented all the facts and figures to support the message that ‘once it becomes a trend in society, not getting married or not having children is no longer ‘just’ a personal choice’. Fair enough. And with a relatively small population in their hands, the Singaporean government has all the right to be concerned.
This government is basically putting all efforts in seeking ways to boost the population rate to rise from its significantly low level. They’ve tried everything, tax incentives, medisave plans (health care financing schemes), bonuses, you name it; they’ll give anything to have its citizens have more babies. But still, the numbers don’t seem to budge that much.

Looking back in time; the same government had advocated for lower birth rates, and succeeded. Back then, people were to pay more (if not call it penalties) for having an ‘extra’ child (parents with more children must bear higher hospital delivery fees and may have limited choice of the school for their children to enroll in; though all children obtain a place in school, and the cost of a hospital birth is well under half the average working class man's monthly wage [1]).
Yet, after they’ve succeeded, the government now wants to reverse the cycle, and encourage those same children that were brought up thinking that ‘more kids implies more costs’ to have more kids and agree that settling down and raising the next generation is the way to go.

Now hold on, as time increased, and as Singapore managed to become a very prosperous nation, the competition level among its citizens to strive for success has also increased. Their goal is to be the best and excel not only among their fellow countrymen, but also compete with the expatriates that comprise more than a quarter of the labor force. [2]
So when all of a sudden the government says ‘add a kid or two in your life’ that will solve their already existing problems? I don’t think so.

It seems like in any society, with a prosperous economy or not, most women face the same problems. The choice of managing work and family becomes a big dilemma. Some mothers would choose to quit their jobs, some would hire nannies and face all sorts of evaluation and get critiques for having someone less educated than the mother to raise the baby; while some have their elderly parents take care of their kids and risk being called irresponsible. But even sometimes, none of these options seem feasible. Either, their parents are not within reasonable distant reach; hiring a nanny is too expensive or too difficult to access; or for any other possible reason.
Then you have your baby day-care centre. But this too can be a non-option, especially when it comes to location or prices. It is not a rare case that the waiting list is so long, the infant becomes a toddler by the time he/she is admitted in, plus the extremely high prices the parents have to bear.

Of course this can sound like an exaggeration to some; but in fact this all describes the dilemmas and problems want-to-be parents now-a days face.
But clearly, the companies support these new moms, right? Of course not, they have a profit to chase after. Not to mention how the bosses would calculate the potential losses these young women will implicate on the company’s productivity once they decide to get pregnant.

Yes, just add a tax incentive, and all the young women of today shall decide to settle down and have babies. Perhaps not yet.

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References
[1] Salaff JW, Wong AK. ‘Incentives and disincentives in population policies’ [abstract]
[2] World Migration 2003 [pdf], IOM

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