Mr Speaker, Sir,
Singapore’s TFR has been falling for many years. Last year, Elon Musk declared that Singapore is going extinct with our low birth rate. We do not need Elon Musk to point out that our low birth rate is a problem.
During his first National Day Rally speech in 2004, then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had already pointed out that the low TFR was, I quote, “a very serious problem for us”. At that time, Singapore’s TFR was 1.26. It has since hit a new low of 0.97 in 2023.
The Progress Singapore Party (PSP) stands firm behind families and family values. We understand that many Singaporeans desire to get married and have children, and we support these aspirations. However, it is ultimately a personal decision whether to get married and have children, and we respect these decisions too. Women are not duty bound to have children, and neither should singles be ashamed or treated differently because they are not married.
I have a quote on my Facebook page since I entered politics in 2020, “Politics decide how a society looks like and society conditions what a person can do or cannot do. We seek to establish the right kind of politics in our country so that all Singaporeans can perform to his full potential.”
I believe that each person makes the best possible life decisions for himself or herself under the socio-economic circumstances created by the Government and the society. Accordingly, I also believe that the low TFR we see today is a result of the socio-economic circumstances that have been created by our Government’s policies over the years. Despite decades of policies, like the Baby Bonus scheme, increased parental leave and financial support for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), our TFR has continued to fall.
PSP believes that this shows that these policies are not enough to resolve deeper societal issues that are discouraging Singaporeans from having children. As the birth rate continues to fall, the Government has largely relied on immigration to make up for the population shortfall. This is not ideal.
We strongly believe that the Government should not continue to rely on immigration as a solution to our nation’s low TFR. Instead, we have a duty to create conditions of economic and financial security so that Singaporeans can be optimistic about the future and feel confident about raising a child and build a society that is conducive for Singaporeans to start and raise families.
Older Members of this House will recall that during the 1980s and 1990s, good job opportunities were plentiful in Singapore. HDB flat prices were affordable even for single income families. There was strong wage growth. “明天会更好” or “Tomorrow Will Be Better”, was a popular Chinese song in the late 1980s. It captured the spirit of those times. It was common to have two children or even three children and we were confident that our children will have better lives than us.
Today, with the rise of the gig economy, falling wage growth and resale HDB prices increasing faster than wages, Singaporeans are worried about their financial security. Many Singaporeans look at the million-dollar HDB flats in almost every town and wonder whether their children will be able to afford a decently sized HDB flat in the future. The majority of married couples need dual incomes to afford the cost of living in Singapore.
Many young Singaporeans are also very worried about the impact of climate change.
Many Singaporeans no longer have the confidence that the next generation would have better lives than ours. PSP believes that we need to reset and re-imagine our socio-economic policies so that we can bring back confidence in the future.
We have previously proposed many alternative policies in this House with that aim and we will do so again today.
Firstly, we must ensure better job security and financial stability for Singaporeans. I have spoken extensively about rebalancing our foreign manpower policies to create better opportunities for Singaporeans. Family formation will be delayed if our university and polytechnic graduates are taking longer to find well-paying permanent jobs and also finding it harder to keep these jobs. We need better policies to improve the job security of Singaporeans.
While the Government has put in many measures since the loss of Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in 2011, such as Fair Consideration Framework, the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP), Complementarity Assessment Framework (COMPASS) and adjustments to the minimum qualifying salary, many Singaporeans are still concerned about job security. We will not be able to increase TFR without allaying the concerns of Singaporeans about job security and work-life balance.
Secondly, we must slow down the increase in the cost of living, especially the cost of housing.
For housing, PSP has proposed the Affordable Homes Scheme, which reduces the price of BTO flats by removing the cost of land for owner-occupied flats. PSP has also proposed the Millennial Apartments Scheme, which aims to provide young Singaporeans with a quality rental option while they are waiting for a new flat. We are confident that these two schemes, taken together, will reduce the cost of housing for Singaporeans and allow young Singaporeans to get their own home as quickly as possible once they are ready to set up a family.
Thirdly, we must further defray the cost of prenatal gynaecologist visits, childbirth and postpartum medical checks. PSP believes that maternity and child-bearing medical fees should be fully claimable from MediSave without limit. Given our low TFR, there is little concern about overusing MediSave for such fees. Female Singaporeans should have full autonomy over how much MediSave they want to use.
Most mothers in Singapore, regardless of race, also practice confinement, which helps the mother heal physically from childbirth and adjust to a life with a newborn, which can be very challenging and even lead to postpartum depression for some mothers. But with basic confinement packages at $3,000 to $5,000 now, the cost of confinement care can be expensive. To help mothers defray this cost, PSP proposes a new $3,000 Healthier Mother Cash Gift, paid to every mother upon the birth of each child.
Fourth, we must strengthen workplace support for caregiving of children. PSP acknowledges that the Government has put in place a wide range of support programmes for parents and introduced new forms of support, such as paternity leave. However, to allow parents to spend more quality time with their children and enjoy parenting, we should have bolder policies. We should create conditions such that Singaporean families can thrive with just one-and-a-half income instead of two incomes. This means that families should be able to afford the cost of living with one full-time working parent and another parent working flexi-time.
In this regard, we can do more to encourage job sharing and the adoption of FWAs. The Government has introduced the job-sharing incentive to support companies. In creating FWAs or job-sharing arrangements for their employees. Under the current scheme, each company receives up to $35,000, depending on the number of employees that have adopted FWAs or job sharing. But this is not attractive enough for employers, especially given the availability of foreign labour.
PSP proposes an enhanced job-sharing incentive. We propose to allow companies to claim from the Government 20% of the wages, capped at $8,000 per month, paid to any flexi-time workers with children, on condition that these money are used to employ more full-time or flexi-time workers. We hope that this will incentivise more employers to create flexi-time jobs and help workers to better balance their work and family commitment.
Fifth, we should recognise the great unpaid contributions of homemakers and full-time caregivers of young children. Many parents, especially mothers, choose to sacrifice their careers to bring up their children. Grandparents also help full-time working parents with caregiving duties and bringing the grandchildren to school, minding them after school and cooking for them.
PSP proposes that the Government pay a $1,250 monthly allowance to one parent or grandparent who is registered as full-time caregiver of a Singapore Citizen child from birth until age seven.
I first mentioned such a monthly allowance in my budget speech in 2023. Those who claim this allowance would no longer be eligible for Government subsidies for full-day childcare and infant care programmes. Part-time care caregivers or babysitters, like myself, would also not qualify.
Under this scheme, a 35-year-old full-time homemaker, for example, would receive $1,000 in cash and $462.50 in CPF contributions, while a 75-year-old grandparent would receive $1,156 in cash and $156 in CPF contributions. This allowance is expected to be a game-changer, as it will provide real and effective support for full-time homemakers and caregivers.
Our sixth and last policy suggestion is to reduce education pressure on families to promote happier family lives. Tuition is now a $1.8 billion industry. Most preschoolers are sent to tuition or expensive kindergartens to get a head start in life. This kind of pressure is taking a toll on young children and we cannot afford the negative effects it has on their mental health. I have heard many young Singaporeans who are choosing not to have children because they do not want them to face this kind of suffering.
To encourage more Singaporeans to have children, we must do more to reduce the pressures currently faced by the young in our education system. We reiterate our suggestion to offer an option of not having to take the PSLE. Members of the House from all parties have made this suggestion before. This will allow children to be happier and parents to enjoy happier family lives.
Let us imagine how enjoyable family life in Singapore would be if Singaporeans have stable jobs, can afford the cost of living with one-and-a-half incomes, can easily get a house to form a family whenever they are ready and can spend quality time with children who are free from exam pressures. Grandparents can spend time taking care of their grandchildren with a caregiving allowance from the Government, instead of working in old age. I am confident that more Singaporeans will be willing to have children if we can create such an environment for families.
The low TFR is an existential problem which should be tackled as a national emergency. If our current birth rate persists, there will only be 12 great-grandchildren for every Singaporeans born today. There is little point in increasing the Reserves if we do not have a future generation to leave the Reserves to. We should use our hard-earned savings to invest in our people and re-imagine our socio-economic policies, so that more Singaporeans will consider parenthood a meaningful and attainable journey.
Sir, in conclusion, PSP believes that we will not be able to reverse the decline in our TFR by simply reviewing and updating our current policies. We already know that these policies are ineffective and that is why, we are facing a national emergency today. What we urgently need, is to re-imagine some new policies and mobilise the whole of Government, and whole of society, to create an environment that is conducive for families and raising children. PSP has provided some new ideas as a starting point and hope that this will develop into a national action plan.
As such, Mr Speaker, may I seek your permission to move an amendment to the Motion. May I hand over a copy of the amendment to you?
Sir, the PSP’s amendment is, in the original Motion, “in line 2, to delete ‘continued review and updating’, and insert ‘re-imagination’.”
Sir, the Cambridge dictionary defines “re-imagine” as “to have a new idea about the way something should be”.
We hope Members will support PSP’s amendment. Not everyone may agree with our new ideas, but we hope that Members will agree that we need new ideas to better support families. PSP invites all Singaporeans to join us in our journey to re-imagine our policies and build a better Singapore, together. For country, for people.
