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Do Singaporean males have to step up if we want more
babies?
In a letter to the Straits Times forum on Thursday,
women’s rights group AWARE
wrote that Singapore has not seen a reversal in the decline of
fertility rates because Singaporean fathers are not rising to the
task of child rearing. It also believes that state
support for equal parenting roles is not adequate.
New executive director of AWARE,
Ms Corinna Lim,
expressed that while many people think that Singaporean women
have achieved greater gender equality, compared with other states
like Australia and Britain where the Total Fertility Rate
(TFR) is now increasing, Singapore is lagging far behind.
Her views echo that of noted
Swedish Professor Hans
Rosling, who was recently interviewed by the same paper.
In his interview, he suggested fairer employment and
government policies would lead to greater gender equity, which
in turn, would boost Singapore’s birth rate.
Rosling compared Singapore’s situation with that of pro-family,
pro-baby Sweden, a close cousin to Singapore in terms of
income and infant mortality rate. He pointed out the two
countries are moving in opposite directions when it comes to
fertility rates — Sweden climbing to a 16-year high of 1.94, while
Singapore plummeting to a mere 1.23.
In her letter, Lim writes this is because “in the last
30 years, women have entered the workplace in droves. More girls
graduate from our universities than boys. However, these changes
are asymmetrical. Men have not moved into the domestic sphere
at the same rate.”
She adds that this makes raising a child “less attractive” for
career women if she has to “bear the bulk of the childcare
burden”.
In contrast, she writes, “Her husband does not lose sleep about
balancing work and family life.”
Sharing Professor Rosling’s calls for fairer
work-place policies, Lim goes on to ask why the government only
mandates four months’ paid maternity leave, but not a day of
paternity leave. She also called for better support
structures for flexi-work arrangements and family-friendly
work environments.
A recent question we asked on Yahoo! Answers on “Why
are Singaporeans not having enough babies?” drew over
1,000 responses.
Now’s your turn. Do you agree with Ms Lim?
Is greater gender equality the solution to Singapore’s Big Baby
problem?
