Introduction :
We are a group of pupils from Peicai Secondary School who will like to investigate more about the recent news of low birth rate
in Singapore. We have interviewed 14 people ranging from 19-54 years old to find out more about the causes and impact of low birth rate
in Singapore. The rest of our blog will show how we have done our survey and the findings.
Methodology :
We interviewed a total of 14 people. We did the survey questions together. In pairs, we went to NEX after school. We looked at the people and approached
people who looked like they are more than 20 years. We asked them our survey questions and wrote down their responses.
Here are some of the Questions we asked :
Are you married?
How many children do you have?
What is stopping you of having more than 1-2 children?
If you are unmarried, how many childrens do you intend to have after your marriage?
What makes you want to have children?
Why do you think the government is so concern about having a low birth rate?
Why do we need to worry about having a low birth rate?
What do you think can happen if Singapore continues to have a low birth rate?
What do you think the government can do to encourage to give birth to more children?
Compare with other countries example : Australia, both parents shared 18 months of pay maternity leave. Do you think it's a good idea for Singapore? Why?
Results & Analysis :
Out of 14 women, 5 were married, 8 are still single and 1 engaged, some single ladies said they are still studying so they do no plan to have children yet.
Some people said that women are more career minded these days so, their first priority is their job and not having children.
They only think about their own happiness and want to enjoy life as much as they can because they don't want to restrict their own freedom.
Some are too busy with their work in order to stabilize their financial work so they are considering whether to have children or not.
Many women want 2 - 4 children because some think that having too much children is expensive. Some Chinese and Malay say that boys will continue their
family name for the next generation. They need younger generation to govern the country. Others say that having more children is good because they
can learn social skills from each other. Some wanted children because when their parents are old, they can take care of their children.
Many shared that Singapore is concerned about this issue is because Singapore need more people to help the economy grow. Singapore does not own much natural resources, and the only resource they have is human beings and Singapore need to bring in foreigners for their talents to stay economically compective. The number of working adults supporting the elderly will decrease and financial burden increases.
Some solutions shared by the people include giving fathers more paternity leave so that fathers can also help the mother to take care of the child. They would also want the government to subsidise childcare centres for the children and medical fees for mother more since it is very expensive.
Singapore women are well educated.They knew the benefits that other country offer 18 month maternity leave, nowadays parents know the importance of the develpment of their young and if possible they want to spend more times with baby. So why not if not only the mother have maternity leave but also the father? It is not easy to raise a kid now as they need a lot of support from husband. Nowadays there's lot of working mothers and not like the old time where most mothers are housewife and their parent also stay with them.
Conclusion :
In conclusion, we found that actually more people wanted to have children, but they do not want to have more than 1-3 children due to the high cost of living in Singapore. Here are the individual reflections and contributions of our group members:
All :
This project helps us to learn more about Singapore and its low birthrate. We had an interesting experience , learnt how to craft a survey and also how to write a blog. It was not easy as we had to interview people need to be brave.
Caroline :
I like the experience of joining this group. I did my part by interviewing people and even typing in this blog. I edited some parts that were wrong. With Sabrina's help, I can edit iteven better.
Sabariah interviewed people and I had the experience to interview people. Julianna interviewd two people and helped them to write better sentences. I love to join this group!
Julianna :
I enjoyed the experience working in this group. By doing my part in the group, I interviewd two people, helped them to write better sentences. With Caroline's help, she did all the typing and she even interviewed few people. Sabrina and Sabariah interviewed people in our school and out of school. They even edit some notes and we had fun together as one group.
Sabrina :
I enjoyed to part of the team. In this group , we all interview 3 - 5 people . It tough to interview people as we need bravery. All of us interviewed the people while I wrote down the important notes. I have contribute in my group. After collecting the data, me and Julianna edited the information and then, I asked Caroline to put it in to the blog.
Sabariah :
Me, Sabrina, Julianna and Caroline had interviewed people. After collecting all the information, Caroline typed the notes into the blog, while Sabrina edited it. Caroline even volunteered herself to be the typer and let us use her account to make her new blog. We team up together to make this project a good shot.
