Sunday 20 May 2012

On Tommy Koh's "What Singapore can learn from Europe"

I like the piece "What Singapore can learn from Europe" By Tommy Koh, and I have written about what we can learn from the Scandinavians last November, which I have largely touched on the welfare and benefits that led to the upturn of fertility rate in the Scandinavia, which Prof. Tommy Koh must have tactfully avoided because the issue of "welfare" is in itself an issue of debate. In fact, the route he took was that of adequacy of quality childcare, work-life balance, the education system and male chauvinism. 

Stop telling us that immigration is the one and only solution to the possible loss of competition for an ageing Singapore (and the extinction of Singaporeans in another hundreds of years). Immigration has to be balanced with an increase in fertility rate, or else it's an endless road. There is really much more than immigration.The government has to decide if investment in increasing fertility rate is worth the dilution of patriotism and the increasing divide of the population.

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