This is what drives Singaporean workers to have babies

3 in 10 said shorter 9am-5pm workdays will motivate them to procreate.

According to a recent survey by JobStreet.com, while women were more willing to let nature take its course when it came to family planning, they were also more reluctant to change their current lifestyles to have children compared to men.

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The survey also revealed that the most common support system for working parents was to place their children at infant care or childcare centers. With regards to caregivers, working parents also indicated a preference for close members of the family such as stay-at-home moms or relatives as compared to engaging a nanny or domestic helper.

Amongst the suggestions that JobStreet.com threw out as possible motivators for working parents to have more children, shorter 9am – 5pm workdays emerged tops. 70% of respondents indicated leaving the office by 7pm daily on the average. Another motivator that sat well with working parents was heavily subsidized childcare facilities at every office building.

With regards to the personal challenges of reconciling career with family, most respondents raised the concerns of the exhausting routine required to ferry young children to and fro from school whilst keeping to their official work hours. Said one pare nt, “As we do not own a car, it takes me 1.5 hour each time to drop my daughter at her childcare center several MRT stations from home and get to work on time. I then have to leave office by 6pm to beat the evening crowd in order to pick her up by 7pm when the center closes.

If every office building has childcare facilities, I can easily drop off my daughter at childcare on the ground floor and then go directly up to my office. If I feel the need to look in on her, I can just pop down during breaks. After work, it is a simple matter of collecting her on my way out.”

Anthony Ung, Country Manager of JobStreet.com Singapore said, “Singaporeans are looking at long term solutions, beyond maternity and paternity leaves. With more career-minded young families opting for a dual income household, expectant families need to come to the realization that they can integrate work with family without compromising on their career goals.”

About 400 men and 600 women participated in the survey. Of which, 50% indicated that they do not have children. Amongst those with children, only 10% indicated that they have 3 children or more.