Oh, Singaporean government, again with your demographics silliness.
Over the weekend, former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said it in his usual blunt style, "Get married, have babies." Else, the country "will fold up."
Over the last decade or so, the government has tried ways and means to raise our nation's falling birth rate to no avail. It now stands at 1.2, well below the 2.1 needed to replenish our stock of Singaporeans.
The government's immigration policy, the subject of much angst and unhappiness among Singaporeans, is its attempt at pushing up the number of citizens, and along the way keep the economy humming.
On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam revealed that the government "is conducting a comprehensive review of its set of policies, adding that making family life enjoyable is part of it and that involves having community facilities."
The word is that Singaporeans can expect a more robust response to the problem.
The review is the latest in a string of initiatives which includes The Working Committee on Marriage and Procreation, and the Tripartite Committee on Work-Life Strategy (TriCom) aimed at making the work place more conducive to working parents.
Still, the birth rate refuses to budge. It is a hard nut to crack. The stork refuses to make a return flight — perhaps until fundamental mindsets within the government changes.
As I've said before, it will not work. It will never work. So long as the "you're a failure until you get your good worker drone merit badge" mentality exists, the problem will never be fixed.
And to be honest, a dark, evil part of me doesn't want the problem to be fixed, not when I pass by crowds of preschoolers being dropped off to be taken care of by the state every single day.
But wait! There's more! Apparently reproduction is only for the educated:
There are no schemes to discourage graduates from having children because it is assumed that they will have good paying jobs which would in turn enable them to have children, as many as they can. For the lower-educated, assumed perhaps to have inferior employment prospects, children are in fact apparently and actively discouraged.
While the government has, at one point, changed its stop-at-two policy to encourage Singaporeans to have as many children "if you can afford it", the HOPE scheme nonetheless still survives till this day.
On the South-west Community Development Council (CDC) website, for example, it is stated that the scheme is ostensibly to help "young and low income families and their children break out of the poverty cycle."
Some wonder if the real reason is instead to simply discourage the poor and lower-educated to not spawn, as it were, children who might turn out like their parents — not having the academic abilities to do well. The government has been accused of "playing god" in the past and for dabbling in eugenics.
Under the HOPE scheme, women apparently can also use the scheme's cash incentive to undergo ligation.
It is unclear how many women are or have signed up for the scheme over the years.
What does all this tell us?
That's right, folks. If you're dumb - no, maybe not even dumb, but simply unable to have the means for higher education for one reason or another - the Singaporean government is clearly suggesting you shouldn't breed. If your apitudes lie somewhere else than in academic excellence, you shouldn't breed. This in turn goes to show their attitude: if not for the dwindling supply of replacement cogs for their glorious economic machine, I doubt they'd care at all. Remember: everyone is equal. Everyone is identical. Everyone is perfectly replacable - and conversely, disposable. For glorious glory of glorification.
Singaporeans, whatever their social or educational status, want to be treated as humans and citizens. Remove such discriminatory thinking and maybe, just maybe, Singaporeans will finally give their buy-in to the national goal of replenishing themselves.
Oh, fat chance, fat chance. We'll all go down the drain before anyone actually wakes up around here. Demographics is the final nail that will finish the job economics and society began.
Oh well, enjoy the decline!
Edit: seems like we silly Singaporeans aren't too far behind on you westerners on the "gimmedat!" train:
KNN . . . talk is damn cheap. You greedy idiots. Drastically bring down the cost of HDB flats, Abolish GST, COE, lower medical cost, lower the cost of living, free education up to Uni - from there you will see a steady increase of birth rates. You greedy idiots, always place money before the good of your citizens. Bastards.
Hmm...cut taxes...how are you going to get all that money for your increased spending? I suppose this one's one of those people who believe in what Cappy Cap terms the "great liberal oort cloud" from which the government magically pulls out benefits and jobs.
Want us to have more babies then lower the cost of Schools,Checkups for Pregnant Mom or Babies,what if 1 sick,then all would be sick,how would we wanna bring up so many kids to any trips cause spend for 1 must spend for all & nothing Cheap here even from milks,babies foods & our own foods!! i'm pregnant now 2nd child & i myself wanna STOP at 2 cause for both my Pregnancy i gain no benefits..BabyBonus is nothing..that $ would end up goes for my kids school fees..for non working mum childcr fees no subsidy & i must pay monthly $350..job all mostly they hired Foreigners! Easy to say..nothing is cheap here & we women are not BABY MAKING MACHINES..we have to think far for giving the kids fair love,fair spending,gd life so 2 is enuff..too many kids is juz giving us mre spending,we nid big house mre help..well is there any help? I dun c any..CDC,MP? Oh juz 3-6mths help..we must kept go up n dwn der to gt help..till wen we must beg? Have sum common sense & logic here..if priority jobs,hse,benefits all only for SINGAPOREANS we might consider..oh i tink dey r referign to PR/PRC here to hv mre BABIES nt us Singaporeans..ooppppssssOne question: if you're a SAHM...why the fuck do you need childcare? Isn't the point of being a stay-at-home-parent, I don't know, TAKING CARE OF YOUR GODDAMN KIDS? Educate your own children like my mother did for me. If commercial baby food is that expensive make your own like my mother - oh, wait, right. As SSM points out, most women these days don't even know how to cook, let alone how to make baby food with their own ingredients. God, woman, you're a far cry from the Samsui women who literally built this damn country brick by brick.
And I'm not really surprised by the mentality that children are valued at how Costco-(or in a local context, Giant)-inducing they are. You want the government to pay for your children up all the way to, what, adulthood? Then again, I'm not surprised, given that all these parents are happily giving their children to the state.
Gimmedat, gimmedat, gimmedat.
Collapse can't come soon enough.