SINGAPORE: A study carried out in May of this year that used artificial intelligence has shown that for young people, money concerns are the top barrier to having children.
A substantial 70 per cent of the 230 participants between the ages of 18 and 30 in the study conducted by Nanyang Technological University and Research Network, a marketing company, cited the high living costs and the financial demands of raising a family in Singapore as their number one reason.
The study’s results can be found in the report titled “Young Singaporeans’ Attitudes Toward Parenthood: Key Findings and Policy Implications,” which illuminates the hopes, fears, and perspectives concerning family planning decisions of young people in Singapore.
Next to financial concerns, three-fifths of the study’s participants cited the challenges of balancing one’s career with family obligations, while two-fifths cited concerns over how mentally ready they are to become parents.
Additionally, the young people said they are also worried about other issues, including climate change, since this would affect their children’s well-being.
They also mentioned mental health and generational trauma as topics of importance to them.
NTU said that the study used an AI interviewing platform that allowed participants to speak freely and share their views without the added pressure of having a human conduct the interview, which resulted in “an unprecedented depth of authentic insights.”
Nanyang Business School professor Gemma Calvert, who designed the survey questions, said that using such a platform may take away the social desirability bias that is often present in actual interviews, causing interviews to unknowingly provide answers they believe are more acceptable to the interviewer.
On his part, James Breeze, the CEO of Research Network, said that the study shows how AI enables studies to be carried out more quickly as actionable findings within weeks. With traditional interviews, this process can take several months.
Singapore’s total fertility rate has been on a downward trend, from 1.12 in 2021, to 1.04 in 2022, to 0.97 in 2023.
There are various reasons for Singapore’s low fertility. Some are temporal, for instance, couples that had their marriage plans disrupted by COVID-19, which may have in turn delayed their parenthood plans,” Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Indranee Rajah said in Parliament in February.
More recently, she said, “Based on current trends, the number of citizen deaths could exceed the number of citizen births in the first half of the 2030s.” /TISG
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