I. Present Situation of the challenge
Low Birth Rate -- The slowest population growth today is experienced in developed countries. Developed countries refer to countries with high levels of economic wealth and living conditions. These countries usually experience a low rate of population growth. Examples of such countries are Japan and United Kingdom. These cause later marriages, fewer marriages and preference for smaller families. More people are marrying later causing them to have children later. This is possible as more women now have higher academic qualification, than before and thus may choose a career before getting married and having children. Furthermore, people in developed countries prefer to have smaller families. This is partly due to the increasing number of working women who find it hard to balance work and family. Hence they choose to have lesser children. More people today also feel that the cost of raising children has increase. Such changing trends and values have led to some couples no preferring to have children at all therefore these factors led to low birth rate.
Ageing population— older people have different needs, they are more likely to have require medical attention and prove to sickness. Upon retirement, they have more free times and thus their social. As they no longer draw a regular income, they have to depend on their savings and family. As far back as the 1980s, the government had started looking into ways to minimise the impacts of an ageing population.
II. Solution implemented by the government to meet challenge.
Low birth rates.
The Graduates Mother scheme à the government observed that more graduates were marrying later and bear fewer children. This scheme was introduced to encourage marriages among graduates to have more children. This scheme cost unhappiness of some less educated women. Therefore not all government policies are able to win the support of the people, and this is one of the examples.
Three or more if you can afford ità this scheme is to grow back Singapore’s population growth back to the replacement level. Instead of discouraging large families, parents were encouraged to have three or more child if they can afford. If too many babies were born during that period, serious problem might arise as families might not be able to cope financially. To help relieve the financial burden, government introduced measure such as allowing the use of Medisave to pay for delivery charges of the first three children.
Other pro-family measuresà in 2004, a new marriage and parenthood measures was announced. These measures came about a public feedback. Among the concerns raised was high cost of raising children and the lack of children arrangement. The four measures—equalised medical benefits, Grandparents caregiver relief, 5-days work week for Civil Service and lastly extended maternity leave.
III. Evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions
Low birth rates— not all government policies are able to win the support of the people. The Graduates Mother scheme is one such example. As a result of the negative public reactions, the scheme was withdrawn after one year of implementation in 1985.
Despite publicity campaigns on the joys of parenthood, many married couples continued to have one or two children. A sizeable number of Singaporeans continue to marry at a later age or remain unmarried. In 2004, 35100 babies were born. It also had only the lowest fertility rates among developed countries.
Ageing population—by about 2030, about 19% of Singaporeans population will be over the age of 65. The challenge would be to ensure that these people remain contributing members of society. Senior citizens have valuable skills, knowledge, talent and work experience. If given opportunities, they will add value to public and private organizations and help boost family life.
IV. Recommendations of possible improves/new solutions by the committee.
Referring to our main problems, we conclude that ageing populations the effect of low birth rate. Several precautions are to be taken to prevent low birth rates. Here are some of the solutions that our committee suggested.
Solution:
1. Higher income families should have more children.
-different from the government policies, we strongly thinks that higher incomes family should takes responsible to prevent low birth rate problem. This new improved policy involves employee pay check. This would ensure that no higher income employee or employers would back out from this improved policy
2. Women’s scheme
-based on the government scheme` the graduates mother scheme’, we felt that this scheme was a bit unfair. Women graduates are more marrying later and bearing a fewer babies, due to their lower percentage in giving birth at an older age. As the research has shown that university graduates has a higher chance to bear children with better performance. This scheme were unfair as the less educated feel that they were neglected but on our outermost opinion, the less and the higher educated people are equal. Their child could be intelligent, provided with sufficient grooming and education. As the saying goes ‘Every child are equal.’ With this newly made policy, no women will feel interior or neglected. This would make more women have more children, with the condition that they have a higher incomes as in our improve policy number.
3. Providing grants or loan for child benefit.
-some families gets discourage about the number of family members. This is because they felt that there are always increasing in the number of tuition fee or any other sort of education related fees. Other than that, medical fees are on the rise. This could means that their child’s medisave would be used up easily. The effect would be that the parent’s income would be decreasing, resulting in more couples to give up easily. Most of our people felt that the government’s assistance in allowing the usage of medisave for delivery charge were not enough nor did it promote population growth.
- In such case, our committee felt that government were to provide funds for all of the children, with exception that the family is qualified enough.
