Gender equality the key to Big Baby problem?

• _Da_Dood_

  21 May 10, 09:04

  By Angela Lim – May 20th, 2010

  

  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?

• Vanilla cake

  21 May 10, 09:14

  Those ladies are really pretty. I really love that girl on the left

   

  btw to the topic

  I honestly think that the problem lies with the time management singaporeans are facing now. If you wondered why, with at least a minimum of 50 hrs of work contacts, Singapore is one of the top few countries with the highest work contact. With increasing stress loads, who else has the time to date and think about the family?
  
  Moreover the government hopes the age group of between 20+ to 30+ to start a family sooner to respond to the baby boomer crisis. I know many young adults out there that are actually pursing a full time career with part time studies. I can't compromise how those people even have the time to seek their love ones and spend time together moreover having babies.
  
  Ironically the government is trying to find a solution to raise more babies so that the population would remain at a stable rate which will in turn make Singapore prosper. However with less cutdown time on work contact. Singapore wouldn't survive too.
  
  Give it a thought

• angel7030

  21 May 10, 14:36

  Originally posted by Vanilla cake:

  Those ladies are really pretty. I really love that girl on the left

   

  btw to the topic

  I honestly think that the problem lies with the time management singaporeans are facing now. If you wondered why, with at least a minimum of 50 hrs of work contacts, Singapore is one of the top few countries with the highest work contact. With increasing stress loads, who else has the time to date and think about the family?
  
  Moreover the government hopes the age group of between 20+ to 30+ to start a family sooner to respond to the baby boomer crisis. I know many young adults out there that are actually pursing a full time career with part time studies. I can't compromise how those people even have the time to seek their love ones and spend time together moreover having babies.
  
  Ironically the government is trying to find a solution to raise more babies so that the population would remain at a stable rate which will in turn make Singapore prosper. However with less cutdown time on work contact. Singapore wouldn't survive too.
  
  Give it a thought

  
  wha lau, aunty also want...hahaha...

  Why take a european professor to comment on our Asian birthrate problem?? I bet lots of Singapore men are sharing family burden now a day too, even tho as a lady, i think singapore men are better than taiwanese or china guys.

  Take for example in taiwan, a wife have to serve the husband nicely, come home, take off his shoes, prepare his food and water for bathing, massage for him, and allow him to go out to enjoy if he wish to go out. The men there really enjoy life. Here the sing men are better, they listen to wife, bring family out, give money to wife, take care and fix  all household problem.

• _Da_Dood_

  21 May 10, 15:02

  singapore men = hen pecked

  =X

• TTFU

  21 May 10, 15:35

  Thats why you can never have total gender equality

• Vote PAP OUT to Save SG

  21 May 10, 15:37

   

  Gender equality the key to Big Baby problem?

  
  

  
  

  More rubbish. Don't peddle your social rubbish theories to serve whatever agenda you have AWARE.

  
  

  Singapore society already messed up by Lee Kuan Yew's racial shit theories already.

  
  

  Don't go follow the anglo dog Lee Kuan Yew.

  
  

  Gender equality more babies? High birth rates all in poor rural countries, you go tell me they have gender equality. 

  
  

  Go fuck off lah, rubbish social filth theories.

  
  

  
  

   

• Vote PAP OUT to Save SG

  21 May 10, 15:51

  I think fucking high cost of living is the real factor.

  Why won't the fucking state times address that factor?

  Only a fucking tool of the PAP.

  You want to come sell me rubbish theories?

  You wait long lah, fucking PAP state media.

• TTFU

  21 May 10, 16:01

  Quoted from passage : 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

  Classic sentence by women rights group. Dint read on the rest of the bull. What Ms lim said was right. Since gender is getting more equal, why should women be the ones going through pain of delivery a baby ? Women blame men not taking care of babies, yet they want men to work and supply them with money.

• Vote PAP OUT to Save SG

  21 May 10, 16:05

  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.

  Maybe it's time for women to serve 2 years NS, take IPPT, fail go RT, go 10 years reservist? We see still got more females graduate from unis than boys.

  AWARE, what are your views?

• Junyang700

  21 May 10, 17:42

  In my opinion, AWARE is made up of a group of old unmarried women and bitches, whose views are not in sync with normal women of Singapore.
  
  Just look at the AWARE saga last year, they simply threw the faces of women.
  
  One is a Christian extremist, and another one is a lesbian fighting against one another for the seat as Chairman of AWARE.

• ChoCoChips

  21 May 10, 17:51

  lanjiao la.

  1. $$

  2. time

   

  income not going up.

  costs up.

  less time.

   

  how to have kids.

• angel7030

  21 May 10, 18:30

  by the way, who is that monk in your avatar??? very funny looking monk..hahaha,

   

  Aiya, now give or dun give birth also make not much different liao...already got 1 million foreigners here already...why they need you to give birth...later your son and daughter have to suffer more than the foreigners.

• ChoCoChips

  21 May 10, 21:02

  Originally posted by angel7030:

  by the way, who is that monk in your avatar??? very funny looking monk..hahaha,

   

  Aiya, now give or dun give birth also make not much different liao...already got 1 million foreigners here already...why they need you to give birth...later your son and daughter have to suffer more than the foreigners.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkRTrksYi8g

  coolest monk ever leh.

  hahaha

• Veggie Bao

  21 May 10, 21:51

  I agree that the two ladies are lovely.

  I just wonder whether the newspaper has asked for their permission, otherwise it is an invasion of privacy.

  Anyways,

  I still think that the reason why there is low birthrate.....is simply this........there is not enough land.

  Because of lack of land, property prices are high.

  Because of lack of land also, and the lack of natural resources, Singapore's economy is mostly a mature service economy. Therefore what it means is that the workforce is stressed and have to work long hours in a competitive environment.

  What a previous poster said, makes sense. If it is true that the gender relations is the root cause, how come in traditional rural societes they have high birthrate? Obviously that is not the primary cause. It is too simplistic to say it that way.

  The real reason, I believe, is natural habitat / geography, and the economy.

• TTFU

  22 May 10, 00:03

  Originally posted by Veggie Bao:

  I agree that the two ladies are lovely.

  I just wonder whether the newspaper has asked for their permission, otherwise it is an invasion of privacy.

  Anyways,

  I still think that the reason why there is low birthrate.....is simply this........there is not enough land.

  Because of lack of land, property prices are high.

  Because of lack of land also, and the lack of natural resources, Singapore's economy is mostly a mature service economy. Therefore what it means is that the workforce is stressed and have to work long hours in a competitive environment.

  What a previous poster said, makes sense. If it is true that the gender relations is the root cause, how come in traditional rural societes they have high birthrate? Obviously that is not the primary cause. It is too simplistic to say it that way.

  The real reason, I believe, is natural habitat / geography, and the economy.

  In traditional rural societys, women accept their role as women, staying at home giving birth, looking over the house, while the men strike it out and bring the bacon home. In society now, women are more educated, why stay at home for 9 months when they can go out and earn money ? Do you really understand what the passage is talking about ?

• Moka

  22 May 10, 00:15

  Originally posted by Vote PAP OUT to Save SG:

  I think fucking high cost of living is the real factor.

  Why won't the fucking state times address that factor?

  Only a fucking tool of the PAP.

  You want to come sell me rubbish theories?

  You wait long lah, fucking PAP state media.

  
   Salary low and inflation high.. how to support a family or kid?

• Annilator47

  23 May 10, 01:21

  Major factors- depressed wages + lack of stability in jobs + increased cost of living +inflation high  + FT flooding + past stop at 2 policy + not so stable global economy = major drop

  minor implications- small amt of ladies with near impossiable choosy citeras( not all of them no offence) +more higher educated ladies- minor effect

  add this 2 together, the scale is still going way down, could reach to huge and critical  level in some years time.

  however add those FT who are PRs and or citizens but using here as a stepping stone before migrating somewhere else would make the situation much more worse than it already is.

   

   

• angel7030

  23 May 10, 14:32

  Originally posted by ChoCoChips:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkRTrksYi8g

  coolest monk ever leh.

  hahaha

  
  ..only you...i really dun understand the movie, old days got only you meh???...hahaha give up!

• angel7030

  23 May 10, 14:34

  Originally posted by Annilator47:

  Major factors- depressed wages + lack of stability in jobs + increased cost of living +inflation high  + FT flooding + past stop at 2 policy + not so stable global economy = major drop

  minor implications- small amt of ladies with near impossiable choosy citeras( not all of them no offence) +more higher educated ladies- minor effect

  add this 2 together, the scale is still going way down, could reach to huge and critical  level in some years time.

  however add those FT who are PRs and or citizens but using here as a stepping stone before migrating somewhere else would make the situation much more worse than it already is.

   

   

  
  At 47yo, your should not be complaining so much, imagine we at 21yo, how on earth are we going to face another 30 to 40 years of active life here..at 47, you should be planing for retirement, and talk less

• Fcukpap

  25 May 10, 22:55

  it is a system controlled and policies dictated towards political objectives...which is the root of the problem

  more prone towards uplifting and protecting feminism ..via all means and medias....at the expense of men...surely this would affect the perception and eventual demoralization to produce babies...

  it is a social psychological issue that these academics are not able to resolve well....the system becomes mechanical and plastic than being natural ...they completely ignore the side effects of their over emphasizing feminism 

• Fcukpap

  25 May 10, 23:28

  the elitist society will sooner or later fail with the lack of socio-psychological insights....

  we do recall someone's daughter send scathing attacks in the name of elitism ...is that the future vision or leader we want? Such system-spoiled nymphs, when overgrown, will kill us all and Singapore will die in their hands...who wants the Sg sluts anymore? what kind of babies are we talking about?

• mancha

  26 May 10, 01:36

  Gender equality?

  Women are already more equal than men.

  As usual, they want more.

• angel7030

  26 May 10, 16:04

  the more the merrier...

• Genie99a

  27 May 10, 17:44

  Originally posted by angel7030:

  the more the merrier...

  
  smlj lol.

  Kind Regards

  Genie