'too tired for sex'

Surely all business corporations large and small should be 'forced' by law to ensure the future population of Singapore. Fewer working hours, longer maternity leave and paternity leave. Paid overtime to ensure that more people can afford to have a child would be a good start. So lets wait for the NTUC to demand such changes for the over worked and under sexed Singaporean worker, or will they simply make child products less expensive. I am no great fan of over zealous and short sighted trade unionists, but I must state that the NTUC is a joke. A correlation between long hours and lack of sex drive doesn't take a genius to see.

However the following article begins, in the title, to draw this correlation then promptly drops it in favour of arguing that it is the career goals and social status aspirations of individuals that result in poor sex drives and poor birth rate. This seems to claim that the reason for the lack of interest is something to do with the individual personalities or desires of Singaporeans and not the long working hours, poor maternity and paternity leave that dominate all non-state organisation in Singapore.

The poor birth rate is correlated with un-caring business practices, not the 'greedy Singaporean individual or couple' that the article from the Sunday Times argues. Classic Singaporean analysis at its PAP best.
Asia's lovers are 'too tired for sex'

December 05 2004 at 11:00AM

Singapore - Married couples in Singapore are too tired to have sex, according to a survey published on Sunday in the city-state, which is facing a chronic shortage of babies.

The survey of 200 married couples carried out by the Sunday Times showed more than three in five couples have sex once a week or less and 75 percent of them cited tiredness as the reason.

"I have no time to have sex, let alone the commitment to bring up a child," said film producer Chan Pui Yin, who is married to a businessman.

Sociologists were not surprised by the results, which they said were a reflection of the emphasis on career and social status by Singaporeans.

"The definition of success has changed," said marriage psychologist Dr Frederick Toke.

"It's measured not by your family, but by your career and your good social status," he said.

Tan Thuan Seng, president of the Christian group Focus On The Family Singapore, echoed similar sentiments.

"People are more selfish now, because of the focus on individual freedom and pleasure," Tan said.

A majority of the couples polled placed love as their number one priority, followed by financial security, children and then sex.

'They're like mushrooms growing on trees'

Christine Goh, who placed financial security as her first priority, said she would not be having any children.

"I don't want kids," Goh said.

"To me, they're parasites. They're like mushrooms growing on trees, feeding on the host," she said.

Singapore's low birth rate has become an urgent concern after the fertility rate hit an all-time low of 1.25 children per woman in 2003 with only 35 000 babies born in that year.

The south-east Asian city-state needs at least 50 000 babies to be born each year, or a fertility rate of 1.8, just to naturally replace its population of 3.4-million. Experts say 2.1 births per woman is the ideal rate for constant renewal. - Sapa-AFP