I find the government's stand to ask singaporeans to reproduce very contradicting and "turning off".

Firstly, due to national service, a guy will finish his university education at the age of 25 (assuming he is only doin a 3 yr degree course and he went to jc). After graduation, he will only find a job that pays at most 2k. How will he find sufficient funds to get married and buy a home for his new family? So if he decides to get married at a later date, he will be facing medical problems of having a child. What I am referring to here is that women will generally have more problems having babies at a older age. So how is the government going to help singaporeans overcome this race against time and age?

Next, i will like the members of the paliment, especially the one that claims it is OUR DUTY to reproduce, tell us how many childern does he have? And hopefully he can think in the shoes of the not so rich, average singaporean. I mean if we have the finicial need, i believe everyone will love to have a child to call their own. But if conditions don't permit, having a child at a wrong time will be finding trouble, as his upbringing will be affected too.

Therefore , i hope the government will think in an average singaporean's shoes. We are human beings, not superman,

Dear All,

Instead of increasing the population, we should decrease the population.

Do you want big house, big car, good jobs??

Then don't produce and in 20 years time, we will only have 2 million people with all the reserves to fund all of us for life.

Actually they should educate the people first. so wat if you have ten milion people if they are all illiterate.

More resources may be wasted to educate them.

don't look at the statistics, singapore is already a crowded place expecting a baby boom would mean a more smaller hdb flats

we should just bring in the talents from abroad to fill in the holes in our economy.

Originally posted by relevation:

Dear All,

Instead of increasing the population, we should decrease the population.

Do you want big house, big car, good jobs??

Then don't produce and in 20 years time, we will only have 2 million people with all the reserves to fund all of us for life.

How in the world did you come up with this bright idea? Please substantiate your point with relevant details and facts.

Originally posted by justbo:

1)Actually they should educate the people first. so wat if you have ten milion people if they are all illiterate.
More resources may be wasted to educate them.

2) don't look at the statistics, singapore is already a crowded place expecting a baby boom would mean a more smaller hdb flats

3) we should just bring in the talents from abroad to fill in the holes in our economy.

Numbers reference to your comments:

1) We have an overabundance of schools both in primary and tertiary levels to educate more Singaporeans. In fact, alot of schools are currently closing down or merging with other neighbourhood schools around the area. So we have the resources to educate.

2) Singapore is not a crowded place. Have you ever seen the number of empty HDB/Condo flats? In fact, due to the shrinking population, HDB is turning to building 3 bedroom HDBs, when it was phased out 20 years ago and only built 5 room flats. Why 3 room? To lower the costs of buying a HDB.
Singapore

3) Foreign talents is good but if we do not have our own people learning from the talents, it will be a waste. Foreign talents do not contribute much to Singapore, ie tax less, most of the savings will go back to their home country.

Originally posted by PachelbeL_20:

I find the government's stand to ask singaporeans to reproduce very contradicting and "turning off".

Firstly, due to national service, a guy will finish his university education at the age of 25 (assuming he is only doin a 3 yr degree course and he went to jc). After graduation, he will only find a job that pays at most 2k. How will he find sufficient funds to get married and buy a home for his new family? So if he decides to get married at a later date, he will be facing medical problems of having a child. What I am referring to here is that women will generally have more problems having babies at a older age. So how is the government going to help singaporeans overcome this race against time and age?

Next, i will like the members of the paliment, especially the one that claims it is OUR DUTY to reproduce, tell us how many childern does he have? And hopefully he can think in the shoes of the not so rich, average singaporean. I mean if we have the financial need, i believe everyone will love to have a child to call their own. But if conditions don't permit, having a child at a wrong time will be finding trouble, as his upbringing will be affected too.

Therefore , i hope the government will think in an average singaporean's shoes. We are human beings, not superman,

The trouble is PachelbeL_20 is that Singapore is fast becoming a metropolitican city much akin to New York City. Whereby, the ideals is more tuned towards the individual than family values.

In Singapore during the 1960-70s , it was tradition that the girl would get married around 18 while the guy should get married by 21. During those days, the guy could still be schooling but will live under his parents roof.

However, as the decades passed, this age limit grew as well... girls became more demanding and wanted to live outside together while the guys wanted to work on their careers. Then, came NS in the late 60s and early 70s, the gap grew even larger. But still some guys would get married before enlisting into the army for NS, nowadays that is almost unheard of. Then, came the policy to have only 2 kids, this made families smaller, its nature for people who have lived in a smaller family to want to have equal or less number of children in their own family. Thus, the strain on family numbers.

To answer your question for the member of parliment who gave that crude comment was Dr Ong Seh Hong (Aljunied GRC) who has 3 kids of his own.

In my personal opinion, Singapore is lacking growth in the economy. Part to do with our low birth rate in recent years. In order to have a condusive economy, we do need to have a steady birth rate to replace old/retired workers from the work force. Having a steady increase in population, will make way for new buildings(housing, malls, offices) and for more businesses to be created.

In order to increase the birth rates, the govt should look into offering support and help to those families in need. My other posts suggests that increasing child care centres would not help lower the costs but increase the fees in the centres as more workers are recruited. Providing key incentives to procreate, will help increase the birth rate. The main key word is costs.

Another article mentioned on Monday's ST about abortions, and how someone barked about disallowing abortions. Boy will that really destroy families.

err people, i notice that there is alot of baby debate threads around. Would you mind limiting all to one thread? So if you don't mind, i am going to close this thread within the next 24 hrs. please proceed to http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=72387 to continue your discussions. And if you have any objections, please raise them within this grace period.
Thank you.
Mod

okie…e point is if they want guys to settle down earlier than they should scrap NS…. otherwise where got money to pay for everything?

Originally posted by harryryan:

okie...e point is if they want guys to settle down earlier than they should scrap NS.... otherwise where got money to pay for everything?

great idea...but who is gona defend us?

Originally posted by NathanG5:

great idea...but who is gona defend us?

e bangala lor....since e government want so much to bring in foreign talents.... hahaha.... they defend e countries n we make e babies.... lolz