Population

One important learning point for me at the Singapore Perspectives is that as Christians, we may choose not to engage in some arguments or discussions but it does not insulate us from having our own opinions.

I am still in the midst of reading the population whitepaper and I am not sure if the general disapproval of it is coming from people who have read it and analysed the significance of every point that the paper was trying to address. It is easy to say and feel the squeeze but then, what are the higher level comments that we can contribute?

It's really not the government's fault that we are having an ageing population, with the baby-boomers reaching the retirement age of 65, and thus there will be a steady decline of working population. Come 2030 (18 years from now), it is projected that there will be 2 persons leaving the workforce for every 1 person entering at the current level (a fair projection). And thus, to maintain the existing level of workforce, we need to give birth or take in foreigners, making the total population 6.5-6.9m in 2030.

From what I have captured so far: the executive summary and maybe 20% of the full paper. The 3 core values in the population policy appear to be:

• A cohesive society (good values)
• Good jobs for Singaporeans (economic growth)
• Comfortable living environment (infrastructure)

I must encourage the government for learning from the past and will strive to work on building these infrastructures. The recent announcements of HDB's effort to build 700,000 homes and MOT's plan for a 100% increase in railways had been encouraging. I believe hospitals etc are being covered in the whitepaper and others would follow.

But nevertheless, these are really the first order questions that are easy to address: pump money in and at the end of the day, you would have a house. I spoke with my colleague on my way to work and his concern is about the increase in pay to support this growth, a very valid point point on whether pay increment can keep up with inflation and rising cost of living (I had asked my colleagues and most shared that pay increment had been below inflation over the past few years).

My concern lies mainly with the building of a cohesive society where you can't just easily pump money into the problem to have it solved. My views could be biased because I hear a lot about the cases that Stacey takes up about broken homes but my sense is that parents have delegated the teaching of values to teachers whose main responsibility is on the education of facts and other academic studies. And foreigners who come in do not immediately share the mindset of the country (which may be a good thing for now).

I believe I have a role to play here. Just learnt that there is such a organisation called the National Integration Council. Will read a little more when I have the time.