To boost fertility rate, do more to lower costs of raising children

As a father of three young children and a past beneficiary of the Baby Bonus scheme, I welcome the recently announced Baby Support Grant of S$3,000 that will provide additional relief to parents during this challenging period. 

Taken together, the financial support given to parents is substantial — ranging between S$21,000 and $35,000 per child.

Compared with the total cost of raising a child in Singapore, however, it may only be a drop in the ocean. An estimate by parenting website SmartParents puts this figure at more than S$670,000 (before inflation).

The high total cost of raising children here may explain why, generous handouts notwithstanding, Singapore's total fertility rate has steadily trended lower, reaching a nadir of 1.14 in the past two years.

To reverse this trend, our fertility policies must go beyond existing handouts and subsidies and address the expense side of the ledger.

One suggestion would be to set aside a number of Certificates of Entitlement for parents with young children. Another would be to waive the foreign domestic worker levy for such parents.

Measures aimed at reducing childhood expenses need not be at the expense of state coffers. 

For example, we can tackle the tuition arms race at the primary school level by replacing competitive exams (that is, the Primary School Leaving Examination) with balloting for entry into secondary schools.

Or set minimum nutritional standards for pre-school meals and school canteens, to reduce the number of visits to paediatricians.

A holistic fertility policy which incorporates smart cost-saving measures can be more effective and sustainable than one which relies solely on one-off handouts.

Raising children is, after all, a lifelong commitment. 

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