B for Babies,B for Buzz- Following the Baby Buzzz in Singapore!

My son, all of 3 years and 10 months has suddenly developed a soft corner for tiny tots and gushes over the thumb –sucking sweeties in the playground, in shopping complexes and even in the MRT! Everybody who has noticed his behavior of late has been warning me not to ignore these tell-tale signs of a child yearning for a sibling and that “I should go for it.”

My husband and I have conceded as much. My son does seem lonely at times, even sad as he asks innocently whom he can share his toys and his room with and who he can take care of like we take care of him”. Once he candidly demanded,” when is the baby is coming out of Mama's tummy?" which caused my husband and me both to panic at the urgency of the situation!

To be honest, with my biological clock going tick tock tick, we had been thinking of another baby ourselves. But we were still debating the pros and cons, actually mostly cons, now for a year and a half. There were definitely some major issues to contend with.

• We are away from our home country, so family (parents, parents-in-law) support is ruled out, we need to prepared to sort things out ourselves.
• With my son in school now, I had been lately weighing my options about contributing more actively to the work force. Will having another baby challenge that?
• My husband works long hours and I have my hands full with household chores, looking after my son and my freelance writing assignments. How are we going to manage the added responsibility of a baby?
• Are we comfortable with children being brought up by a maid if the need be?
• Can we financially, afford to bring another baby in the world? By this I mean the high medical expenses-during and post birth child birth in Singapore? For the obvious reasons, no insurance covers childbirth.
• Can we afford bringing up another child and giving him/her all the amenities, education that we endow our only son with presently? Are we prepared to spend extra on childcare and or full-time maid?
• Finally, I am on the wrong side of 30 and having another baby will set back my career plans by at least another 2 years. Will I ever be able to make up for lost time?

Despite the above dampeners, we love babies and grudgingly admit every night that our son does need company.

While mulling over these contentious issues over and over in my mind, I also realized how other young couples must also be going through the same predicament in Singapore and in other parts of the world. And often unable to find practical solutions, the circumstances get better of people leading them to delay / abstain from having children or adding to their current family size.

It also makes me wonder who actually makes the crucial decision to have a baby. There are several key influences to what transpires in the privacy of a bedroom; influences such as societal norms, educational status, economic status, prospective grandparents, an older sibling and even the government.

Looking around in Singapore, I find the baby buzz getting louder every day. Undoubtedly Singapore is going through a precarious time in history with its abysmally low fertility rate which is down to 1.6 babies much below the required Replacement level of 2.1. By a rough translation this means less babies today, lesser young people tomorrow and a rapidly ageing population.

Analysts have estimated that by 2030, 20% of Singapore’s populace will be 65 years and above which will give a severe blow to its economy. An ageing population brings on a double whammy in the form of no economic contribution but high maintenance and medical costs.

There is a mounting pressure on the government to find solutions to this burgeoning problem besides the not-so-popular option of opening the doors to more migrant workers and families. It is ironic but women in Singapore who constitute a major part of the country’s workforce are at the center of this storm.

A Ministry of Manpower survey conducted in 2010 on Work-Life support shows that 51% of Singapore’s women are in the active workforce. However, the figure is still lower than female participation in other developed countries such as the US, UK and Japan. The report also pointed out that in Singapore, more women are likely to opt out of work after having a baby and they are less likely to join back work.

The common reasons for women pointed out were;

• Lack of flexible work arrangements such as part time work and work from home options
• Lack of knowledge about such job options if any
• Lack of good child care facilities near home/ work place
• Lack of job opportunities near home
• Lack of training and up gradation of skills to remain relevant especially in case of rejoining the workforce
• Recently, the spotlight was on companies especially SME’s who are retrenching pregnant women or women who go on maternity leave.

Needless to say those women who are ambitious and who are loath in quitting their well-paying, well-placed jobs would feel better off delaying marriage and having babies. A lot of these women in their 30s and 40s would discover after years of voluntarily postponing having children that they are now biologically past their prime and it is an uphill task to have babies. Not good news in a nation which wants to improve its birth rate.

To be fair to the Singapore administration, they have not been complacent about this issue. Far from it, the government has been handing out baby bonuses which get bigger every year, working mother’s child relief (WMCR) schemes, child care support, paid maternity leave and more. The Government has also been playing cupid by initiating singles-mingling schemes like Romancing Singapore to encourage young people to date, marry and hopefully have babies. But as an old idiom goes “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink it.” Changing the mindset of young people is the most difficult part.

A little digging up reveals that Singapore current baby crisis is not so current and nor the government's efforts in tackling it. Two decades back the rate was an unenviable 1.87 and has been falling ever since. In fact I chanced upon an interesting article on Singapore’s declining birth rate by a blogger in 2006, where he commented on the high presence of DINK (Double Income No kids) couples in Singapore. Another online article published in 2004, also highlighted the low fertility rate in Singapore and how Durex had ranked Singapore last in a global list of sexually active nations.

Maybe it is the deeply ingrained traits of ambition, competition, career-orientation and excellence that Singapore cultivates. Or maybe it is the desire to earn those infamous Singapore 5Cs (Cash, Car, Credit card, Condominium, and Country club) which drives people to push family-building on the back burner.

Besides educating people to change their mindset and make families a priority, here are a few steps that can make a real difference in encouraging women to start a family without fearing loss of employability;

• Flexi-jobs -To back up the rhetoric, the industry needs to offer plenty of flex-job opportunities if it wants to retain women in their workforce. Part time jobs and work-from home opportunities are ways to create jobs for working mothers who want to divide time between work and family.
• Mumpreneurs- Associations and organizations need to provide support and advice to enterprising mothers who are starting a home grown business but lack technical and financial know- how.
• Training – Training and education schemes must be in force to help women keep their skill sets current and relevant when they join the workforce after a maternity break.
• Ensuring job-security for mothers already in the work force.

On our part, mothers can help by keeping expectations realistic while transitioning from a full time job to a flexi-work option or while returning to the workforce after a long break. We can help by keeping informed, by keeping current, and by networking with like- minded women. We can also benefit by aligning personal aspirations and efforts with those of organizations such as Mums@work that support balance in work and family.

Dear blog, that is all for now. I will surely keep you informed if and when the stork comes a-visiting! In the interim, I am brushing up my resume for the Flexi work mingling session of Mums@work on 29^th April, 2011, ciao