Wen Rui/Family, Marriage & Gender Roles: Evaluative

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society? (mjc/2997/jc1/)
I believe that Singapore is a family-friendly society to a large extent. Singapore is a family-friendly society especially in the role of creating a family conducive environment. As there is a need to alleviate the problem of low fertility rate of 1.28 which is well below the replacement rate of 2.1, the Singapore government has implemented many pro-natal policies in bid to encourage more live births per women. Family friendly policies include extending the maternity leave from twelve weeks to sixteen weeks and improving the Baby Bonus Scheme. Hence Singapore is a family-friendly society especially in terms of creating an environment that encourages larger families.
However Singapore is not a very family friendly society when some of their family planning methods excludes men. Most of the policies to encourage live births are for women and exclude giving benefits to men. For instance, the American company Google Singapore is one of the rare companies in Singapore that provide paternity leave to up to one month. When looking after children requires both parents, the lack of attention given to men in their role of a father in caring for their new-born babies is not pro family and thus may discourages fathers to be involved in their parental care. This often results in one-sided care from the mother. In this area, Singapore is not a very family-friendly society.
Nevertheless, Singapore is a family-friendly society to a large extent.