MAKE no mistake. The most critical issue in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's National Day Rally speech was, and should be, the baby shortage issue.

Full Story

Yup we really need all those construction workers, toilet cleaners, sex workers, coffee shop assistants etc. to be Singaporeans instead of FTs. A real crisis!

How to make more babies when it is so stressful economically for middle and lower income earners. Raising a child is very costly here. Drink milk only la, do not rear calfs.

I believe that this is something which should be tackled and in time to come, it will result in too many foreign immigrants and this is definitely not what a country needs. However, in order to achieve the target of having 60000 births per year it will not be easy. Firstly, in singapore, the cost of living as risen dramatically and the burden on the working adults may be too much to bear. They have to work to support their parents and this may cause them to put off the idea of having children. Moreover, singaporeans are reluctant to have babies because, they would want to enjoy a few years of without the stress of raising a child and also, i do not think that the baby bonus is sufficient enough as women are afraid of getting retrenched if they got pregnant and currently the law does not really protect the interests of these women so most of them would rather keep their jobs than give birth to babies. So I think that more has to be done to increase the the birth rates and it is definitely worrying by looking at the current figures.

If only the Prime Minister's father had not elected to play God and practiced the selective breeding scheme in the 70s, all this would not be an issue today. Only graduates are alllowed to have more than 2 kids. The rest of the lower intellect citizens were discouraged to produce. If one were to disobey, no priority in school selection etc etc... If one were to opt for 'tie your fallopian tubes", you get a reward in the form of S$500 rebate from the government. My cousin underwent such surgery after disobeying the government and had 3 kids in mid 1970s.

Best part is kanna fine for the the 3rd child. Now it is a new mistake altogether. Each ministries aims to be profit centre. Price of everything goes up, we blame on global eco (mainly). HDB's private condo(= HDB+private developer condo) cost 600k+++. No house, then go open market. COE+PARF+tax cost 80k+++. SIN is no-class when comes to baby products - these items are taxed !!

Young couple want to start family outfront already in DEBT for the next 50 yrs of their lifes. Money no enough for them - how to give you more babies ?

This time got many perks, just that the bonus money never increase. So wait a little longer, next time no result, there will be more perks, I saw the game liao.

Also, have children is very ..?? you stress with them until they are 24s. Pre-Nursery, K, Pri, Sec, JC/Poly, Uni, NS. The baby bonus is for use in SIN only, ask yourself, how many local citizens can make it to the UNI (now) and next time ?? The bonus cannot use for oversea education do you know that ?

funyong#5
This old man Lee is the one who started off Sg with so many campaigns. The first one in 1966."Keep Singapore Clean." Stop at 2 and out of the blue Graduates can have more kids. Stop putting your nose into the peoples' life will you?

Get your calculator and work it out..in the enxt 20 years non singaporeans will be in the majority if population growth keeps to government targets of I think 6.5 MM.....

Firstly, i would like to comment a statement by the writer that "issues concerning local-born versus foreign-born, and citizens versus non-citizens would divide the country deeply". What is meant by "citizens" and "non-citizens"? Does it really matter whether these citizens are local-born or foreign-born? As far as i know, when a person meets another person new, he will not ask if the other person is born locally or in foreign countries. I feel that there is nothing wrong with converting PRs into Citizens, as long as they play an equal part in contributing to society.
Secondly, with regard to funyong's comment, it must be noted that Singapore was facing a different problem then in 1970s. The Government was worried that if the people who cannot afford it, have many children, they will fall into poverty with the burden. This will lead to the need of the Government to give subsidies and such to help them raise their children. And this is not what the Government wants, as they need the money to help build the economy and buildup Singapore's infrastructure. They wanted graduates to have more children, as the key at that time was to improve the literacy rate in Singapore. Also, at that time, the Government was worried of overpopulation which will lead to different kinds of problems including shortage of jobs, food, housing etc. The idea is that, Singapore is in a different era now. She is considered a developed country now, as compared to a developing country then in 1970s, and the problems faced by developed and developing country are different. Hence i do not think it is fair to say that the government should not have done as they did in the past, and that it is because of what they did then, that led to today's problem. Even if they did not implement schemes to discourage lower intellectuals to have more than 2 children, it will still lead to problems that are different from today.

SsHhEeNnAa is very objective and our society landscape is constantly evolving and our government is actively fore-seeing future problems/scenarios. We have to give them credit for this.

I have a thought regarding the baby shortage. Should we link getting married and having a family together? For females/couples who are not keen to have kids at all, I guess there is nothing government can do about it.

There are some single/divorced persons who may not want to get married(due to personal reasons) but interested to adopt/have a kid (through sperm donors/surrogate mothers). Should our government have schemes/subsidies to help this process? Currently, I know it is not easy for singles to adopt and expensive to go for procedures like artificial insemination? Is this a possible way of targeting the baby shortage problem?

Although it is not ideal for a child to grow up in single parent family, however I am sure the child will always be well-loved.

Target at person who wants to have a child.