Singapore offers ‘pandemic baby voucher’ to boost births

Singapore offers a one-time payment to encourage people to have babies during the coronavirus pandemic.

The concern is that citizens are putting off parenting while struggling with financial stress and job layoffs.

Details of the amount that could be paid have not yet been released. It is in addition to several sizeable baby bonuses offered by the government.

Singapore has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, which it has struggled to push for decades.

It is in stark contrast to some of its neighbors, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, which face the prospect of a massive increase in pregnancies due to their coronavirus lockdowns.

“We have received comments that Covid-19 has caused some would-be fathers to postpone their parenting plans,” Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said on Monday.

Heng said that more details on the amounts and how they will be paid will be announced at a later date.

Singapore’s current baby bonus system offers eligible parents up to S $ 10,000 ($ 7,330, £ 5,644) in benefits.

Singapore’s fertility rate hit an eight-year low in 2018, according to government data, at a rate of 1.14 births per woman.

Many Asian countries face a similar problem of falling fertility rates, which could worsen during the pandemic recession.

Earlier this year, China’s birth rate fell to its lowest level since the formation of the People’s Republic of China 70 years ago. This came despite the loosening of the much-criticized one-child policy.

Baby boom

But some of Singapore’s neighbors face the opposite problem.

In the Philippines, unwanted pregnancies are forecast to increase by nearly half to 2.6 million if Covid 19-induced movement restrictions remain until the end of the year, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

“These numbers are an epidemic in themselves,” Aimee Santos, a spokeswoman for the UN agency in the Philippines, said last month.

The Philippines has the second highest population in Southeast Asia at 108.4 million. It has one of the worst virus outbreaks in the region with more than 307,000 infections.

“These women’s and children’s issues have remained largely invisible during the pandemic. It’s time to put them front and center,” Sen. Risa Hontiveros, head of the House women’s committee, said last month.

She has endorsed calls for more female officials in the nation’s task force against the coronavirus outbreak.