Levies to force people to be more productive at work, more time for govt to dawdle wrt to problem of low birth rate.

Levies to force people to be more productive at work; more time for govt to dawdle on problem of low birth rate.

donnygg wrote:

He said in ST today we can't do it the Nordic way because their higher birth rates are due to births outside of marriage. Since it's not socially acceptable here and more people are singles, that's why we have declining birth rate. ...

In so far as its levies for people and companies (to promote productivity), higher salaries for themselves and time for dawdling for the government, "Mrs Lim said.. the government.. needed more time to review what can be done to tackle the issue." ('Lim Hwee Hua urges firms to boost productivity' [CNA, 23Feb2011]) U can be sure that nothin is going to work out round here!

Whats the difficulty with granting paternity leave though?

References:
- 'AWARE calls for paternity leave to be mandated by law': "We have [been saying] that since 1998, that we have to look at policies that are more gender equal. If we have more gender equal societies, where the costs for women to have children is not so high, we are likely to have more babies [and] a fairer society [where] women [do] better in the workplace". [CNA, 09Feb2011]
- 'Lim Hwee Hua urges firms to boost productivity' "Second Finance Minister Lim Hwee Hua said the hike in foreign worker levies aims to send a message to companies, to make permanent changes to the way they run their businesses and boost productivity.... ... Some participants also questioned why the budget did not include specific measures to tackle the low birth rate. Mrs Lim said it's not because the government did not think it was not important but needed more time to review what can be done to tackle the issue." [CNA, 23Feb2011]



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At/ related:
HWZ:
28Feb2011: WKS barking up the wrong tree on birth rates