Birth Rate hits all time low

The man who was death SG

gays and lesbians also can seh kia mah, gays can get surrogate mother, while lesbians just need a sperm doner and test tubes Wink

chunyong SG

education expensive, healthcare expensive, GST getting higher, payrise tends to 0 and u think people will like to have so many kids meh ? got the $$$$ anot…if u give birth to 2, they both go poly or uni then u sure jialat and there goes ur CPF liao….milk powder oso not cheap leh….diapers oso…all add up and u see how much is siphoned from ur income monthly and the amount goes up exponentially month by month, yr by yr

nopulseisgood SG

Embarassed err...maybe becos sg ladies are not that horny??how to increase population if the girls just wanna have sex once a mth wif their husbard?

Fatum SG

http://www.asiaone.com/st/st_20050917_341354.html

saw this while surfing the local news .... thought to throw it in here like a grenade .... Wink

sbst275 SG

Hope higher birth rate this yr

Already so many preggy woman seen

Honeybunz SG

It is job security. Remember recently somebody posted this case on pregnant women being sacked from job.

Ok... fine. People get sacked when they don't perform. But it is natural that pregnant women tend to perform less and slower in their job due to the physical constraint. So what does this mean?

Working women should not give birth at all? I can't help, but to agree with that.

In some countries, pregnant workers are protected by labour law. But it is not happening in Singapore. We only see our govt pushing us to produce and multiply by giving us the "carrot". Sorry lah. I have done the calculation and the "carrot" is not attractive to me AT ALL. I am a very practical and calculative person as far as the govt policy is concerned.

Govt is using so much money to give us that not-so-attractive-to-me carrot. Why not use that money to please the companies instead? This way, companies are happy. They see no reason to sack the pregnant women. Instead they will try every way to keep them in order to get the "baby bonus" from govt. (If it is given to the company, maybe it should be renamed something else) . On top of that, companies may even come up with their own "carrot" to encourage their married female staff to have kids.

Honeybunz SG

Clever Very Happy

So are many Singaporeans. That's why the birth rate still drop. It's a good thing. It shows that Singaporeans do not stupidly follow orders.

Honeybunz SG

why blame sg ladies? Mad

dragg SG

lose your job and it will be difficult to find another. this is especially true for older workers.

one generally may not face much financial pressure while young but you never know after 40.

babies?

not unless you are financially stable!!!

sbst275 SG

Cannot blame them..

Our lifestyle too harsh for many to have time to make babies not to say have babies

the Bear SG

i want to ask this question that goes against the grain of all that we have been taught...

why the heck do we want the birth rate to be so high?

i mean, look around you... we're way overpopulated... so why the hell do we need such a high birth rate?

if someone tells me "because of the greying population", i'm going to strangle the person... what, may i ask, are the huge number of children, if the birth rate increases, going to become? chopped liver?

they will become another generation's "greying population" too!

then what? singapore shoots for a population of 10million?

there is a certain limit which planet Earth can handle... we're near that..

we have not learn the lessons which wiped out the Mayan civilisation, have we?

The man who was death SG

i agree with u, we may be under populated here but globally we're overpopulated. so dun just think of singapore, think globally. if u have less kids, global warming levels will be maintained and not rise. overpopulation and overcrowding will be maintained too.

happyharvest SG

*nod head*

seow SG

Inflation inflates=birth rate deflates? Very Happy

Great_One SG

Singapore isn't the only country being affected by this trend. Many developed countries are also experiencing the same problem. Eg, Australia, Japan. There are many factors influencing this trend.

1. Standard of living. As things get more and more expensiv, parents cannot afford to have as many children as they like. Imagine the investment needed to raise a baby to a working adult. Trust me its not cheap.

2. Modernisation of times. As the cultural ideas and perception starts to change so does the way people do things. Women nowadays are very much career driven as their male counterparts and alot are opting to have children later. Alot later than their mothers. But unfortunately due to the biological aspect being unchanged it produced problems. As women gets older so does their chances of miscarriage or infertility. So therefore it lessens the chances of producing a healthier baby able to survive.

3. Conditions of enviroment. Mortality rates are also a factor. In countries where death is common and the norm, families have more children for the sake of survival. The more children the more possibility of survival. Number playing.

I am sure alot of other factors are invovled but I am too lazy to think of them Razz Haha.

Great One

Rhonda SG

Hey! Hey!! If you're going to strangle me, I'm going to put up a mean fight! Twisted Evil

If there are disproportionately fewer births, when they reach working age, economically, they DO have to end up supporting the elderly population by way of taxes, volunteer work, etc. Resources WILL continue to be channeled to see to the welfare of the greying population and the burden shall continue to be shouldered by the economically viable, ie. those who are still working.

In demographics, we always avoid a top-heavy age pyramid, because it means that those below, shall shoulder a heavy burden.

There ARE social costs and implications involved!

Japan even produced a documentary back in the late 90's on their greying population. They were studying ways on how to handle the economic and societal implications of a large greying populace.

If birth rates do not have serious implications on Singapore's future, then, why would the govt go to such extent to try to encourage more births?

the Bear SG

you've fallen into the trap..

this huge number of children will become the next generation's "greying population"..

then what?

there is NO NEED for this...

they have enough resources to look after this generation of "greying population"..

what next? think about that question carefully...

p.s. i don't like the idea of selling away the future just to buy the illusion of making the present slightly easier..

Rhonda SG

I think the factor that's close to a lot of people's heart would be a general pessimism about the state of things as they stand now.

After weathering economic uncertainties, retrenchments, disappointment over the lack of actual help from the various sectors, etc. who in the workforce feels secure over their job? Who has a sunny view of their career?

Stress seems to be building up like pressure building up within a pressure cooker in the average workplace these days. Employers try to limit headcount, transferring / distributing tasks that are meant to be performed by the 'excess' headcounts to those employers who are currently employed. This results in over-work, but nobody dares to speak up because everyone is worried about job security. This leads to highly stressed people who exhibit a short fuse in their dealings because they're tethering on breakdown.

I'm sure there'll be more than a handful who'll think :

- "Why give birth when the kids will end up having a tougher life than me?"
- "Why have kids when I cannot even cope now?"
- "Why start a family when I cannot even be guaranteed that I'll still have my job tomorrow?"

Rhonda SG

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