Raising kids shouldn't be such a struggle. How society treats parents matters

Parenthood is not just a personal choice but a sacrifice for the common good that deserves more social recognition.

- Tan Poh Lin

For the first time, Singapore's resident total fertility rate fell below one. The 0.97 figure for 2023, a preliminary estimate, is approximately half of the level needed for the population to replace itself.

The decline comes despite several policy announcements in the last two years to make parenthood more attractive to Singaporean couples. These include the enhancement of the Baby Bonus cash gift by $3,000, the extension of paid paternity leave from two weeks to four weeks and the launching of tripartite guidelines to increase workers' access to flexible work arrangements.

In the recent Budget 2024 announcements, Singapore is also lowering childcare centre and special education fees, and introducing a new housing voucher system that will allow families the option to rent from the open market while waiting for their Build-To-Order flats.

Will these steps go some way towards addressing the concerns?

Many of these policies are designed to offset childbearing expenditures and to make parenthood more compatible with work. Yet, couples often remark that although policy measures to support parenthood are helpful, this help, increasingly generous as it is, simply doesn't go far enough in addressing the high monetary and non-monetary costs they foresee.

The Baby Bonus scheme provides objectively a sizeable sum of money - up to $33,000 when the Child Development Account grants and matched contributions are included. But for most families, this sum is unlikely to cover the total financial outlay of child-rearing for more than the first few years.