Monday 11 June 2012

Take closer look at housing link to fertility

A tiered discount may encourage married but childless couples
By Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 9 Jun 2012

WHAT will it take for Singaporeans to have more babies?

This is a question that has surfaced recently as national debate over Singapore's ideal population size, goals and policies take the limelight this year.

Suggestions on how to raise Singapore's dismal total fertility rate (TFR) - one of the world's lowest at 1.2 - have been aired. They range from giving more cash handouts to parents to increasing the quality of child care.

In a recent interview, Dr Tay Eng Hseon, medical director of Thomson Women Cancer Centre, called on the Government to make bold moves in providing housing and health-care carrots to encourage early child-bearing.

Give priority allocation of Housing Board flats to married women aged 23 to 27. And if she has her first child before 30, give her a 20 per cent discount on the flat, he said.

Will his proposals work?

At first glance, his suggestion could come across as too prescriptive and also discriminatory against older women.

But this link between housing and fertility deserves a closer look. National University of Singapore economist Tilak Abeysinghe has done detailed studies on housing affordability and found a correlation between it and fertility.

His housing affordability index (HAI) is based on the ratio of median lifetime income to average HDB resale and private residential prices. When the HAI is charted with Singapore's TFR, he notes that when housing affordability drops, fertility seems to also dip.

'When housing affordability drops, (couples) will have to wait longer to secure a house and this may come at the expense of family size,' says Prof Tilak.

He suggests that it is possible that 'sustaining housing affordability may help at least in arresting the precipitous decline in the fertility rate'.

Nominated Member of Parliament Laurence Lien pointed out in a recent commentary that married women still have an average of above two children. The fall in TFR here is largely due to increased singlehood rates and delayed child-bearing.

Worryingly, in 2010, 20.5 per cent of female citizens in the 30 to 39 age group who were ever married were childless - a significant jump from 13.2 per cent in 2000.

He argues that if we can stabilise singlehood rates, child-bearing ages and the number of children born to married couples, a TFR of at least 1.5 is attainable in the long run.

Viewed in this light, Dr Tay's suggestion is worth considering but can also be fine-tuned.

A housing discount could be given to encourage currently married but childless couples to have children. It could be a tiered discount, say, starting at 10 per cent for a couple whose child is born before the woman hits 30.

And to encourage couples to have more children and to have them earlier, the discount could rise according to the number of kids they have by a certain age.

Yes, it's terribly unromantic and also transactional - but Singaporeans are a very pragmatic lot. This is why the equivalent of a marriage proposal here is the question 'Shall we get an HDB flat?'

Given the importance couples place on having a home to call their own before having kids, the Government could also consider giving priority allocation of HDB's sale of balance flats (where units are ready to be moved into) to couples who are expecting a child.

If the desire to raise TFR is truly a priority, I would even argue that the Government should consider giving the same incentives to single parents whose children similarly need a home and stable environment.

I'm aware these proposals could prove controversial - it attracted polarising reactions when I tested it out with readers online.

Some were outraged, saying it uses public money to 'alienate other groups of citizenry' and it was 'outdated social engineering', but there were others that embraced it, saying it would make a difference in an era of high costs of living and inflated home prices.

My view is that since efforts by the Government so far have not succeeded in reversing our declining TFR, it is time to look at bold, potentially controversial but also potentially workable solutions.

Given housing is placed high on Singaporeans' priority list, it may also be the most persuasive way to encourage child-bearing.

But I should add a caveat that monetary incentives have only a limited impact on an individual's decision to have children.

It is a highly personal choice based on one's upbringing, personal values and social circumstance.

Boosting the country's TFR will require a combination of both the hard policies and a reset of society's softer aspects, to create a more conducive environment for both marriage and families.

For a start, something as basic as paternity leave should be legislated in Singapore - it sends the right message that child rearing is not just a female responsibility.

Something should also be done to address the rising materialist culture here, where there is a general obsession with working long hours and keeping up with the Joneses. The Government - Singapore's largest employer - and large organisations in the private sector could take the lead by encouraging 9am to 5pm workdays.

In some European countries, working past 5pm is unheard of. Evenings are for socialising, dating, and family. In Singapore, it is almost socially unacceptable to leave work early - and evenings are spent in the office rather than on activities that could boost marriage or fertility rates.

At a recent Institute of Policy Studies forum on population, participants pointed out that Singapore could do more to raise TFR rather than look mainly to immigration to sustain the population.

This requires the public to be supportive of bold policy moves - regardless of whether these benefit them individually.

Right now, Singapore is just not trying hard enough.

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