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Comment by bell-cot | Hacker News Reader

From a few comments in the article and here, I'm wondering how viable Singapore is as a country for typical residents (vs. the 1%) to have children.

If (say) both would-be parents in a couple have to work long hours to afford their own food, housing, & such - yeah, NO. They obviously can't have many kids.

Anyone here familiar, to comment?

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Middle class life is pretty reasonable in Singapore. You can have two working parents with boring, average corporate jobs (the economy is very strong in Singapore), then you live in modestly priced public housing, ride public transit everywhere, and send your kids to public schools. It seems fine to me. And the middle class isn't something rare in Singapore; it is most of Singapore. You can also hire a cheap domestic helper to cook most of your meals, clean your home, and shuttle the kids to and from school and activities. This is a very common pattern in Singapore.

How might things look if a couple has 3+ kids, and perhaps only one parent working outside the home? Because if Singapore actually wants to reach break-even from where their numbers are now, that needs to be a realistic scenario for a whole lotta people.

    > How might things look if a couple has 3+ kids, and perhaps only one parent working outside the home?

Why is it important to only have one working parent? In most rich countries, two working parents is pretty normal now. In Singapore, you can hire a domestic helper or two.

Singapore is so rich and desirable that it can import highly educated people forever. Plus, it is diverse by default/design, so people are quite open to having diverse neighbors.

Where you don't have extended families living together, mom being able to afford to "work" full-time as a parent/homemaker is a pretty traditional benchmark for being able to afford having several kids.

And are those domestic workers part of the population pool that you're trying to boost the fertility of?

    > pretty traditional benchmark for being able to afford having several kids.

Source? I grew up with many middle class families that had 3+ kids and both parents worked. Normally, the father worked a "high intensity" (higher income) job, and the mother worked a "low intensity" (lower income) job. The kids turned out fine. Daycare and extended families can really help.

    > And are those domestic workers part of the population pool that you're trying to boost the fertility of?

They are not. They have a work-only visa that cannot be converted into permanent residence nor citizenship. (Hongkong, Taiwan, Israel are similar.) In short: They can work as long as they want as a domestic helper, but they cannot retire in SG/HK/TW/IL. They need to return home when they stop working. It is quite common that they work for the same family for 10+ years. During this time, they return home every 1-2 years. Pregnancy (with their husband) is not unusual. They give birth in their home country, and the child(ren) grows up with the husband or extended family.

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