While We Were Sleeping

So the government is alarmed that we are not making enough babies to renew ourselves as our population is aging.

That is the results of social change.

Key contributors to social change, as we all know, are economic, political, and cultural. What do these have to do with people not having more babies / can't have more babies?

I guess our focus has changed. Because of the fast growing economy, our primary concern now is how to live a better life. And of course we can all blame globalisation - with globalisation, we see what are the so-called "better lives" can be - bigger houses, bigger cars, better education, latest fashion.... So how do we achieve that "Singaporean dream" of having the 5 or more Cs? We work harder. Who told us that we need to work harder? The government - because we need to stay competitive. And the cycle goes on.

So - there comes the problem - we don't have enough time to spread among 5 or 6 children - so we settle for 2. We don't have time to start a family when we were young because we need to work harder, venture outside of Singapore, and by which time we come back to Singapore to settle down, we are in our 30s - too late to have more kids - or worse, too late to have any kids.

And when we have fewer kids, we tend to provide them with better stuff - just ask one of my students whose mother bought him a $1000+ LV bag... so there - again, our focus has shifted - what do we value now? Not so much of the quality time you can spend with the kids, but the quality stuff you can buy for your kids.

It's a vicious cycle. And they are all connected.

Social change does not happen in a day. It does not happen right before our eyes. It happens while we were sleeping.