Singapore Fertility Rate

The hot issue of Singapore's declining total fertility rate was a key focus at this year's National Youth Forum, where Mr Goh was a guest-of-honour. Mr Goh said: "Those who can't afford to have children never had problems over affordability. They just have more children. And those who can afford, in fact, do not have more than one or two or so. So there's that contradiction over there, which suggests that having children in fact is a rather complex issue."

I think Mr Goh still does not get it. The reason I would be inclined to think so is that Mr Goh has been having a rather secure and smooth sailing career for too long. Likewise over the years, he has been working with or surrounded himself with people from the civil service or SAF where their jobs are too relatively secure and stable.

If you are in the private sector, you would have realised very quickly albeit depending on which line you are in that your job is always on the line. You could be fire any day due to reasons that are totally out of your control. In most cases, it has neither to do with ability or attitude. When whole industry collapses, there is really no place where you can hide. There is also a high rate where skills and experience are made redundant with the increasing pace of change in technology and emerging industries. In short, careers in private sector can be very disruptive.

Thus, I would surmise that one of the main reason singaporeans are not willing to have kids or more kids is not really an attitudinal issue. The more important factors are the uncertainty and the constant need for new adaption that come as part and parcel of private sector jobs. You could be drawing $15K per month and be the top performer this year but you know jolly well that you could be fire the very next day for whatever reasons. Finding similar jobs get increasing difficult as one get older and almost impossible once you hit 45. Young people starting out at 25 could not envision where they can be 10 years down the road, let alone 20.

Given such backdrop, why do people want to have kids as it going to be at least a 20+ years commitment?

If you look at the birth rate during the Asian Financial Crisis, it dropped. Why, becuase people became uncertain about the future so they postpone having a child. The dot-com crisis hit only smaller segment of the population so the effect may not be so accentuated. The SARS crisis is too short. Our TFR hit record low in 2010 recently, guess what? The 2008/2009 Financial Crisis!!!Remember, there is a delay effect of about 10 months.

I have this conjecture that married people in the civil service (including teaching) and SAF tends to have more kids that those working in the private sectors, especially the highly volatile ones.