Recently, when the PM announced the many possibilities that his ministries will be working on to boost the birth rates, it was active action of hitting the keys on the keyboard, but the tune didn't sound nice, just like how we complain about the national day song these days being no match against the national day songs from two decades ago.
There are many facets to the birth rate problems. The more obvious ones are money, time, job security, spouse support, grandparents support, maids, car, preschool, quality of life, standard of living, ...
If we drill down to the blocks of life, what every man wants from life, it's happiness. When we use happiness as the guiding principle, we will be able to see more problems beneath the visible problems.
Firstly, happy people will breed happy people. If the person doesn't feel happy with his life, not necessarily unhappy, he will ask himself why will he want to bring to life a child who will feel the same as him, if not worse.
Secondly, successful people breed successful people. A successful person will feel happier than an unsuccessful person. Those who are unsuccessful and say that they are happier because they are unsuccessful are living in self-denial. Our capitalist society has made us all very competitive. After going through ranking exercises in schools for tests and exams, we go through more ranking exercises at work. It breeds a majority population with low self esteem, and a minority population with high ego. Those who are constantly trying to climb to the top will eventually conclude that having children will add more burden to whatever burden they already have. This burden could be in the form of not being working hard enough to reach the top.
Thirdly, high cost of living is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everybody around you talks about how expensive it is to raise kids - milk powder, diapers, medical, childcare, tuition, enrichment, insurance, school fees, university fees. Over time, you think that that is the "normal" lifestyle, and when you try to adopt it, realise that it is really a high expenditure pursuit. This reduces one's life satisfaction index, and hence happiness. Innocently, having children implies increasing your already high cost of living.
Fourthly, over sensationalised balloting results in flat applications. People feel that there are not enough flats for everyone, hence being able to get a flat first is seen to be a big achievement, when it really is not. Going through all that trouble really makes people feel unhappier than happy.
Fifthly, over sensationalised balloting scenarios in primary school admission. Parents even need to do volunteer work to get a chance to ballot for a slot in the school. This gives people an impression that there are insufficient primary schools in singapore, maybe it really is the case, but if it is not, creates that impression. However, I believe that there are insufficient schools that can meet the needs of the aspiring and competitive parents. When others see how grouchy parents become over just getting their child into primary school, they think that it's unlikely their children will be happy as well.
Sixthly, money makes people happy. Those who say that money doesn't make people happy are either filthy rich, or are being supported by donations. If you give someone $100 rebates, he is happier than his PR neighbour who didn't get it. If you give someone $10,000 in baby bonus, he is happier than the foreigner parent who didn't get it. So my point is, the bottomline needs to be raised, the individual needs to have that constant $100, or $10,000 appearing in his bank balance, so that he constantly keeps himself happy, instead of the government making him happy once in a blue moon, if not, only once in a lifetime.
Finally, I grumble once in a while that I have to spend ~S$20k/year on my little girl's childcare, medical, daily expenses. I haven't factored in my manpower cost to look after her, maybe make it cheap, S$10k/year. If I convert this into GDP, I am contributing an additional 30k/year to Singapore's economy. And I am convinced that the government wants me to spend a lot more, so that GDP continues an uptrend, just like their salaries.
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