Singapore's desperate measures to increase childbirth and it's unintended consequences

Ladies and Gentlemen,

With the fast falling birth rates in tiny Singapore Island where the local born population is not more than about 2.5 million, with one of the lowest rates in the world of only about 1.2, which means if things are left as they are, in a few decades there won't be any local born left, the government is now descended to greasing the palms with all sorts of insignificant crumbs for having children. Unfortunately, it appears a case of too little too late. Not just that, the policy as it is, will have far damaging unintended consequences.

Please see the following reports in their state controlled newspaper Straits Times
http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/population-paper/story/government-releases-new-measures-promote-marriage-and-parenthoo

http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/population-paper/story/singapore-aims-total-fertility-rate-14-or-15-128-dpm-teo-201301

http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/population-paper/story/one-week-government-paid-paternity-leave-20130121

http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/population-paper/story/young-families-moved-front-bto-queue-20130121

The government will pay about $6,000 Singapore for the first 2 births not in a lump sum but over a period of time in tiny installments and a slightly larger figure for the next 2 children; they will have just one miserable week of paid leave after having the child; and young families will be given preference on wait times for government housing.

For one thing, adults who are sufficiently well off and who have refused to have children for reasons such as the island’s authoritarian system of government, will not have them for these measly sums. Children cost much more than a few thousand dollars paid in tit bits over a long period of time.

On the other hand, instead of attracting the younger qualified and skilled middle income Singaporeans with good jobs, it may attract the low income people who have no idea what this means and who may do it just for the money. And since very probably they are already suffering some form of financial hardship, they would fall even further into difficulty given the fact that Singapore has simply no welfare of any sort.

The other problem is that it may attract the wrong kind of Singaporean entirely. Lee Kuan Yew has made no secret of the fact that he wants Singapore to be an ethnic Chinese island, which explains the fact that he has allowed hundreds and thousands of Chinese from China to indiscriminately immigrate whilst not allowing the other races. As a result of this sustained racial cleansing, the ethic Chinese population in the island has grown to nearly 79% with the Malays a mere 10% and the Indians, an endangered species there, to a mere 8% or so.

Of all three races, he particularly dislikes the Malays and would have hoped that all of them dropped dead the next minute. Why he still allows them to remain is to fill the low paid jobs that others dislike which require very little thought process or judgment, like low level police officers, peons and security guards; just as the Arabs in Jewish Israel.  

But what happens, Heavens forbid, if the Malays who are at the lower rung of the social ladder decide to take up the offer and have more babies, a nightmare for Lee Kuan Yew. Lee may be faced with his nightmare of the Malay population increasing at an even  faster rate than the Chinese, which it already is, with its concomitant problems of a strain on their financial situation, difficult as it already is.

The only way Lee can manage the eugenics is by announcing firstly that they would only go to ethnic Chinese children, only to those with graduate degrees, and thirdly the incentive should increase from the measly $6,000 Singapore, for a child to $600,000.00. Then perhaps they may take the bait, but then again, what guarantee is there that they will not take the money and emigrate to sunny California the next minute.

And if Lee Kuan Yew did in fact do that, he would be named the latest Singaporean Hitler going for his supreme race, not Aryan but Chinese. That would make Singapore one real Chow Mein don't you think?

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375