Question: To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?
The Singapore government supports families in having more children. It justifies the rearing of children as a wonderful and blissful experience. Also, it believes that a family is incomplete without the presence of couples' young ones. As such, to encourage couples to start a family and have more children, pro-family policies are implemented. For an instance, a baby bonus scheme is introduced whereby a lump sum of money is given to the family when their first and subsequent child are born. The amount of money given is meant to support the high cost of rearing children in Singapore. Thus, it is true that the Singapore society is a family-friendly one as the government encourages its citizens to have larger family by showing its support giving monetary benefits. However, this is only so in situations when the birth rate in Singapore is not at a replacement level. Therefore, it is necessary for the government to take actions in bringing up the birth rate in Singapore. This is because with very low birth rate, it means that in the near future, there will be a larger proportion of the elderly as compared to the working population. As such, this is detrimental to the government because the economic progress is not maximised due to the small ratio of working population contributing to the economy. Therefore, it is evident that Singaporeans do not support family completely.
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