Incentives!

As usual I was listening to the radio while driving to work the other day and the topic of the day that the DJs were discussing was what incentives should the Government give to encourage Singaporeans to give birth to more babies.

Many people responded, from the ridiculous to those that are still very bitter about the implementation of more ERP gantries to some very nice suggestions.

While I was never a believer of offering cash to encourage more births but I have to admit the money will come in handy for settling the hospital bills. However I feel that perhaps the money should be given out straightaway upon discharged or used to offset the hospital bills directly instead of giving back bit by bit over 18 months.

Isaac has already turned 6 months and I have just received the 2nd cash gift of $750 making a grand total of S$1,500. I wonder when will the 3rd installment be paid.

I believe that if any couple feel that they want children then with or without incentives from the Government they will still have their children. If they are those that prefer not to have then I guess no amount of money will move them, I know I won’t.

In any case the incentives offered are insignificant when you look at the total cost of raising a child. I may be wrong here but there was a calculation done and it estimated that it will take about $700,000 to raise a child right up to the University. Even if this figure is exaggerated the few thousand offered is still a tiny drop in the grand scale of things.

In my opinion, besides having the money (termed Baby Bonus) paid out in a lump sum upon discharging from the hospital, a lot has to be done with the mindset of the employers here too.

Most of the companies here are not family oriented to begin with and some will even frown upon their female employee taking maternity leave. Others may not hire when they know that this applicant is planning to start a family soon.

Both Mike and Kat work in the Banking industry and you cannot imagine the Maternity and Paternity leave that some of these banks are offering. Try 5 months for Maternity and 1 week for Paternity leave. Needless to say they are all fully paid of course.

My company won’t even give me half a day off let alone 1 week when Isaac was born and when I asked them innocently if our company practice giving out paternity leave, their answer was they are merely following the Ministry of Manpower’s guideline. I interpret it as “Since the government is not enforcing then we, the private sector won’t even have to consider offering”.

So if the Government is really thinking of ways to boast the birth rate here then the one thing I feel they should start looking into is definitely offering dads Paternity Leave. Hopefully this will take away some pressure that the ladies are facing when they want to start a family. Besides that, hands-on fathers will also be able to help out at home while the wives are nursing themselves back to health. There is also a need for the fathers to bond with their children.

Maybe I am being greedy here but frankly 1 week is really not enough. This is especially the case if couples are not engaging the confinement lady. Speaking from experience, I thoroughly enjoyed the 1st month that I stayed at home although I had to take half day leave throughout.

Whatever the Government is planning to implement we can be sure that it will be better than what we already have now. My only wish is for them to announce fast as we all know it will usually take a while for new implementations to take effect.