As the Year of the Rabbit is now upon us, millennials dread conversations about marriage and having a family at many an otherwise joyous new year party. The Amazon.sg advertisement that promotes the silencing of probing elders by putting scrumptious festive food bought on its platform before them, encapsulates this sentiment.
It finds resonance globally. In India, a couple is suing their son after waiting six years for him and his wife to bear them a grandchild. Citing what they spent on his lavish wedding as an “investment”, the frustrated older couple want to bind their son to do that in a year’s time by threatening to sue him for $650,000 if he failed.
Governments have also tried to encourage the younger generation to have children through policy changes. In Hungary, where many of its youth have left to pursue economic opportunities elsewhere, in 2019, strongman and premier Victor Orban’s government decided that women who choose to have more than four children will be exempt from income tax for the rest of their lives. It is hoped this will help Hungary obviate the need for large-scale immigration to staunch population decline.
While such controversial events and policies changes have not occurred in Singapore, one could argue that tensions between older generations of Singaporeans on one side, and millennials as well as Gen Z citizens (all people born after 1981) on the other, exist over the question of starting a family.
The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) and the National Youth Council’s (NYC) Youth STEPS long-term panel study has been following over 3,000 young adults since 2017 to track their life experiences from adolescence to adulthood. Participants were aged 17 to 24 when it began in 2017. A key finding of the study is that they are in no rush to get married or start a family.
In 2020, the study established that 60 per cent of them were anxious about building their careers and nearly 70 per cent cited not being able to get a good job as their main career concern. Issues such as the high cost of living and a lack of time to pursue one’s passions were what consumed their attention.
In the NYC’s comprehensive 2021 report, this study found that as life goals, while an already low 35 per cent of the respondents said it was very important to be married in the 2010 survey, this fell to 29 per cent in the survey conducted in 2019; 17 per cent had said it was “not necessary to marry” in 2010, an increased 41 per cent said this in 2019. While 34 per cent indicated it was very important to have children in 2010, this fell to 27 per cent in 2019. “Helping the less fortunate” and “making a contribution to society” ranked higher than marriage and parenthood as aspirations in life.
These views are mirrored in a survey of young citizens’ attitudes to child-bearing conducted by online news platform, Today.
Of the 1,066 respondents polled, cost of living was cited by most as a significant obstacle to having children. There were other factors mentioned such as the sense of uncertainty over raising children well, Singapore’s stressful education system, the inability to spend enough time with their children, and loss of personal and couple time. Climate change was also cited by 22 per cent of the respondents as a significant reason for not starting a family.
Given the innumerable socio-economic disruptions they face, the ecological distress the planet is under, and their deep sense of social consciousness, it is not surprising that millennials are anxious about the future and seem to be “protesting” against society’s demands to have kids.
In sooth, Singapore policymakers have sought all means and methods to promote marriage and parenthood — from helping citizens with the dollars and cents of family formation and providing quality housing to establishing enough childcare centres and reforming the school system to reduce stress. A mega-buck, multi-faceted Green Plan was introduced in 2021 to help Singapore reduce its burden on Planet Earth.
These steps might address some of the security and sustainability issues at the heart of the ambivalence of millennials and Gen-Zs, but there is little prospect of a rapprochement with the older generation on this matter because of a gulf in attitudes.
Many of the solutions offered to the problem of Singapore’s low fertility rate are set in the current paradigm and can ironically be perceived to reinforce the fears millennials have rather than solve them for those who have yet to cross over the threshold to marriage and parenthood. Build more, spend more, be more competitive is what they hear. But they want to be stewards of a better future; not the cause for one that is worse.
At this point, we can imagine the baby boomers say — “We lived at a time of even greater socio-economic upheaval, especially after World War II, and later the Cold War. These difficult circumstances did not stop our parents from having us.” Indeed, the Government had to institute a Stop at Two policy just to tame the trend.
Millennials, on the other hand, cite the innumerable structural changes they face — from the end of lifelong work contracts to the end-of-life challenges they will have to help their parents face; the climate crises that confront them daily; and the double-edged reality of living in online communities (many of their “circles of care” are virtual).
The crux of the problem is this: Older generations of Singaporeans chose to have children first and then dealt with the challenges of nurturing the family as they went along. They had large communities, rich with social capital to share the demands of care with, exchange wisdom, and draw on connections to help their children thrive.
By contrast, Singaporean millennials want to assure themselves first that they will not be adding to the planet’s ecological strain, and that they can shield their offspring from the stressors of life they revile, before making that leap into parenthood.
The rapprochement between the generations is likely to occur only if seniors can agree that it is prudence and a sense of responsibility that drive these hesitant young adults, which is to be applauded, not misconstrued as laziness, self-indulgence, or being materialistic, which is what seniors reportedly think of them.
This provides a more constructive socio-psychological setting to work through the other collective and multifaceted challenges of parenthood.
As Singapore embarks on refreshing its social compact, the discourse around issues of fertility and longevity, and the future of the Singapore nation are integral to it. Acknowledging that millennials’ concerns are legitimate and that they come from a good place sets us in a sweet spot for talking about the life-altering decision to have a child — at Chinese New Year gatherings, and beyond.
Gabriel Lim is Research Assistant, and Gillian Koh, Deputy Director (Research) & Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Policy Studies, NUS.
Top photo from Pexels.