South Korea’s health ministry has recently made an interesting announcement. It’s turning off the lights in its offices to boost the country’s birthrate. Just like Singapore, South Korea is short of babies. In 2009, Singapore has fallen short of its 50,000 yearly target while South Korea’s birthrate is only 1.82.
According to Yahoo News, lack of manpower is an urgent and important issue that Korea is facing right now. So the ministry believes that by sending its employees home early, it is helping them to get more committed to childbirth and rearing. The health minister admitted that there’s no link between childbirth and leaving the work place early but he doesn’t want to dismiss the idea that this strategy could possibly increase the country’s birthrate. Aside from this strategy, the ministry is also giving out lots of incentives for employees who have more than two kids.
Do you think this strategy is going to produce the results that South Korea’s health ministry is hoping for? Do you think our MOH has to implement the same strategy here in Singapore?