Are you ready for 7 million people on tiny Singapore?

[Imami]

limlim:

ammonite:

wah, reading this is tougher than PSLE papers. My Hokkien - fail ah! :oops:

it's not Hokkien.. or majority is not..

I think it's hokkien le.

[sunflower]

3Boys:

From LLL


\"In a recent ST report, Singapore sees an average of 12,000 abortions a year, and 4 out of 10 women who went for abortions were single women. Reducing the discrimination against single mothers may reduce the likelihood of single mothers having to resort to terminating their pregnancies for fear of lack of support. Furthermore, for a country suffering from a fertility crisis, each child should be valued, and not punished simply because he or she is born to unmarried parents.\"

Are we as a society, ready for this?

From the statistics, it is implied that 40% of those aborted babies were produced out of wedlock. For these singles, there exists a stigma where effort must be made (from government initiatives and society) to reduce or remove.

For the other 60%, some babies may be aborted because of medical conditions, and some maybe because parents only planned for certain number of children, or some may think they are unable to cope financially. There are many reasons for the decision to abort. Out of this 60%, those with normal healthy pregnancies should be encouraged to keep the babies.

In fact, I think there should be more details on how they are going to take this forward. Anyway, with the rising infertility rate, there seems to be a trend for couples to adopt.

[Imami]

limlim:

sleepy:

[quote=\"imwithchild\"]maybe our children will never see Singapore as home... just a thought

No la, won't happen. Remember they have social studies in school?

My kids said they LOVE Singapore.

Social studies is a huge success :evil:

until they grow up.... :evil: :evil:

those who doesn't now, they do when they are young rite..?[/quote]I am opposite. When I was in primary school, I sang all those national songs loudly and happily but looking back, I don't think I love my country then. After I got married (yes, much older), I then realized how lovely my home land is and I began to love it. Sure I complain like most sgporeans. But I won't migrate to any other country.

[sunflower]

pirate:

pirate:

(4) Freeze total no. of foreign workers, presumably including EPs (\"We should strive to keep our foreign labour force constant between now and 2020, depending on our success in growing the local labour force. It does not mean that we shut the doors to foreign workers. Instead, new work passes will be issued only to replace expiring work passes or to supplement shortfalls in the local labour force.\" - per NCMP Gerald Giam)

Actually, this one I have an issue with. How is this to be implemented?

Does it mean that new set-ups will not be able to get foreign workers because all quotas are already hogged by existing businesses by way of grandfather rights? Or does it mean that as and when a business' foreign workpass expires, it will have to compete with other businesses for a workpass since the demand for workpasses will be greater than the number that can be issued out? How are workpasses to be allocated? Like COEs? Does WP see this resulting in a reduction of the dependency ratio? Any idea what the reduction will be or are businesses supposed to guess? How is a business supposed to plan its manpower like that?

Since the effect is going to be a reduction of the dependency ratio anyway, why not just make a roadmap for the reduction of the dependency ratio? Wouldn't it make it easier for businesses to plan ahead? Or does the proposal primarily involve \"let's put this in place and see what happens\", thus effectively taichi-ing the uncertainty of what the dependency ratio will be to businesses?

Will employment passes be subject to the same regime? What will be the interplay between EP and WP under such a regime?

How will it apply to workpasses for FDWs? Are we going to have a COE system for families wishing to employ FDWs? Otherwise, how to freeze no. of FDWs? :scratchhead:

My guess is that for existing businesses, if can’t get the FTs to replace the previous ones, got to either find locals to replace, or scale down the business. I think for this to work, there must be in place a system to re-distribute the number of FTs, spread out amongst the various industries’ new and existing set-ups. As for the actual process, me also

Actually, I do see some flaws in the WP’s proposals while scanning through. Not going to say anything at this point of time, until I see more concrete plans and implementation strategies.

[pirate]

pirate:

(6) Somehow get Singaporeans to make more babies (but dunno whether compatible with somehow increase productivity and get more SAHMs and grandparents to work)


(6b) Somehow make more HDB flats for Singaporean couples (but \"Singaporeans must accept a slower pace of construction\" because don't want so many foreign construction workers - per MP Pritam Singh)

Now I want to question this:[quote]The first problem is that Singapore has seen declining birth rates for nearly 40 years. Yet, all the government is doing in the latest enhancement to the Marriage and Parenthood Package is to increase incentives to get young couples to have more babies. Why is the government continuing to use a method that has not worked? Why does it not see there are serious roadblocks such as high housing costs, lack of family and social support, lack of quality childcare options, and bad work-life balance that are preventing young couples from marrying earlier and having more babies?

The second problem is that low birth rates are leading to a shrinking citizen core. Instead of focusing on removing the roadblocks to set birth rates on the path to recovery, the government wants to use immigration to top up shortfalls. At the highest rate of handling out new citizenships at current birth rates, there will be 25,000 new citizens to 30,000 citizen births a year. This is almost one is to one. - Per MP Low Thia Khiang[/quote]Let's run through this to see how it works.

(1) By improving work-life balance, presumably the WP means shorter overall working hours. This has to be achieved against a lower foreign worker dependency ratio and a required increase in productivity. Is this achievable? Some indication of how to square this round hole would be nice.

(2) \"High housing cost\" - the gov's plan to reduce this is to ramp up the construction of BTO flats. Does the WP disagree with this? If the WP does not disagree, how does it propose to ramp up the construction of BTO flats while at the same time reducing the number of foreign construction workers?

(3) \"Family and social support\" and \"quality childcare options\" - does this not require more workers in these areas? Childcare centres and \"social support\" do not run by themselves without people. Where should these additional workers come from in the light of no increase in overall foreign worker numbers? Do we cannibalise them from the existing resident workforce? I am not sure what \"family support\" means if SAHMs and grandparents are all encouraged to join the workforce.

(4) What is Plan B if this approach to increase TFR does not work? :scratchhead:

[WeiHan]

Transient foreign workers (as oppose to increasing immigrants) is less of an issue for me for the fact that they can move out anytime when the need for them is longer there. Again, it has to be considered in an industry by industry basis, for example, for construction sector, if there is a need for increased foreign workers so that we can improve our badly needed infrastructures, then there is will be no capping in that particular industry. However, for other sectors where it is possible to encourage more local citizens participation, there should be a tighter control. So I can’t say that I agree with WP completely. It has to be considered in a industry by industry basis.


As for granting of citizenship, it has to be taken with much greater care than foreign workers as these people will be granted priviledges and rights and the effect is deeper.

[pirate]

pirate:

(7) Promoting Singaporean friendly immigration policies (this one I actually understand!)

[quote]Our immigration policy takes into account factors such as the individual’s family ties, economic contributions, qualifications, age, family profile, ability to contribute and integrate into our society, and commitment to Singapore. How exactly are these factors being computed? Can we have a more transparent point system like that in other countries? I ask this because all MPs must have seen many people during their Meet-The-People sessions to appeal for LTVP, LTVP+ and PR for their foreign spouses. Some have been married for years to Singaporeans and have Singaporean children, yet they continue to be denied PR and sometimes LTVP+. We were often not told why in the rejection letters. - Per NCMP Yee Jenn Jong[/quote]I am going to stick my head out and assume that the WP is saying that they want to lean towards granting PR (and even citizenship) to foreign spouses of Singaporeans, especially if they are parents to Singaporean children.

Personally I am in broad agreement with this. However, we must understand and agree with how this will work out on the ground and the issues that may arise.

I read somewhere that 75% of marriages between a Singaporean and a foreigner involves a Singaporean man marrying a foreign wife from an Asian country.

It is likely that most of those spouses who are not granted PR or even LTVP+ are:
(1) married to Singaporean men (or women) from the lower or lower-middle income groups
(2) from non-traditional countries, for example countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, maybe China and India
(3) not highly educated, hence probably do not speak much English.

The issues that may arise are:
(1) it is possible that these spouses, if granted PR or citizenship, is more likely to seek government support, whether in healthcare subsidies or other form of economic aid
(2) these spouses may face difficulty integrating if every Singaporean expects them to be able speak English
(3) over time, they may wish to bring their parents over to Singapore; are we going to say no?

On the other side of the coin,
(1) it may turn out that PR or citizenship status will allow these spouses to work in Singapore, thereby reducing the household's need for support. It is possible that these households, with a single low-income earner and children may already need state support in any case even if we do not grant the foreign spouses PR or citizenship
(2) it is likely that these spouses, although not highly educated, may be more resilient and willing to take up jobs that other Singaporeans may shun
(3) it is possible that these spouses, with Singaporean children, have a greater vested interest to make the effort to integrate despite not knowing English
(4) children of mixed marriages may in time to come become bridges to the countries their mothers or fathers originate. They may well be better able to exploit or help Singaporean companies to exploit commercial opportunities in those countries. If we truly believe that our system of meritocracy allows children from low income families to have the opportunity to climb up the social and economic ladder, we must also believe that this is possible.

But do the rest of Singapore agree? Are we going to complain that they speak too loudly in a foreign language etc? Will we complain if the spouse is a man that he does not have to do national service? :scratchhead:

Lastly, are we going to exclude foreign spouses who had worked in Singapore as FDWs? :scratchhead:

[JannettLee]

3Boys:

raysusan:

http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/379316_608040349212552_165554393_n.jpg\">

How does this not count as propaganda that does not even stand the slightest scrutiny. Just a number of empty promises, cast a few strawmen in the PAP's direction, and voila, everyone taken hook line and sinker.

People will believe what they want to believe. Since when did the g'ment say that elderly are not productive? Have they not been trying to raise retirement age for years? And how many people have agreed with that?

On paper, those WP's suggestions sound promising. If go deep into each point, it's very difficult to implement them and chances of achieving all promises are slim as they are linked to one and another and also take longer times. No wonder government tried to avoid those approaches and took the easier way out to take in more population (which is more readily available and achievable). However, I do recognize what WP had pointed out that those consequences for having new Singapore citizenship, of which, I think government must have plans in place to tackle those foreseeable problems.

[JannettLee]

WeiHan:

Transient foreign workers (as oppose to increasing immigrants) is less of an issue for me for the fact that they can move out anytime when the need for them is longer there. Again, it has to be considered in an industry by industry basis, for example, for construction sector, if there is a need for increased foreign workers so that we can improve our badly needed infrastructures, then there is will be no capping in that particular industry. However, for other sectors where it is possible to encourage more local citizens participation, there should be a tighter control. So I can't say that I agree with WP completely. It has to be considered in a industry by industry basis.


As for granting of citizenship, it has to be taken with much greater care than foreign workers as these people will be granted priviledges and rights and the effect is deeper.

I do agree with the Transient foreign workers/FT approach as the needs for having one skills-set to another may be evolved from one time to another and we must also consider an industry by industry basis. Do monitor industry by industry and only open up for those talent/workers for industries that are in need.

In addition, I'd suggest to have a preference but not limited to Singaporean workers/talents scheme for those business/industries in Singapore for local market/businesses such as retails/banking/local constructions industries/etc that can't be moved out of Singapore (these jobs should be protected for local Singaporean). For those MNC/Manufacturing/OEMs/etc, I understand that they may need foreign talents/specialists/experties and these businesses can be moved out of singapore if they can't find appropriate talents/competitive manpower costs to do the job.

[crony.026118in.026118ksp]

All these ostriches have lots of hot air suggestions after burying their heads under the hot sand for too long


Anything non-PAP is like genius to them even though they are most alike with dodo birds