bloodygurl02
07-05-2004, 05:31 PM
SINGAPORE - Baby-short Singapore was to get a glimpse of the highs and lows of pregnancy and childbirth Saturday with the premiere of a television series that follows a couple through the entire baby-making process.
The show — dubbed "Here's Looking at You, Babe!" — comes as the wealthy Southeast Asian city-state grapples with a precipitous fall in its birth rate, which threatens to shrink its population if it isn't reversed.
"The government wants Singaporeans to have more kids and we are stepping in," father-to-be Allan Li told Channel NewsAsia, the network that will air the series.
The first episode shows Allan and his wife Li Lin, a television artist, left to baby-sit other parents' toddlers in what is billed as the couple's "first taste of parenthood."
The would-be mom said doing the show would make her "a little more educated, along with not just me, but with the entire population, in terms of pregnancies."
Young adults in Singapore, the region's wealthiest country, are becoming averse to having families — a trend mirrored in other Asian nations such as Japan, and the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.
Last year, the fertility rate dropped to a record low of 1.26 births per woman, far below the 2.1 children per woman viewed as the minimum needed to keep a country's population stable.
The decline has set alarm bells ringing at government ministries, and a committee has been ordered to devise ways to persuade people to have more children. Its recommendations are expected to be delivered in August.
Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — a father of four children — has said his top priority when he replaces Goh Chok Tong as prime minister later this year will be to tackle the steep slide in the birth rate, according to a newspaper interview last month.
As the fertility debate stirs up commentary, a group of high school students recently suggested one answer may be to develop an irresistibly romantic resort on small islands just off Singapore's southern coast.
The show — dubbed "Here's Looking at You, Babe!" — comes as the wealthy Southeast Asian city-state grapples with a precipitous fall in its birth rate, which threatens to shrink its population if it isn't reversed.
"The government wants Singaporeans to have more kids and we are stepping in," father-to-be Allan Li told Channel NewsAsia, the network that will air the series.
The first episode shows Allan and his wife Li Lin, a television artist, left to baby-sit other parents' toddlers in what is billed as the couple's "first taste of parenthood."
The would-be mom said doing the show would make her "a little more educated, along with not just me, but with the entire population, in terms of pregnancies."
Young adults in Singapore, the region's wealthiest country, are becoming averse to having families — a trend mirrored in other Asian nations such as Japan, and the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.
Last year, the fertility rate dropped to a record low of 1.26 births per woman, far below the 2.1 children per woman viewed as the minimum needed to keep a country's population stable.
The decline has set alarm bells ringing at government ministries, and a committee has been ordered to devise ways to persuade people to have more children. Its recommendations are expected to be delivered in August.
Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — a father of four children — has said his top priority when he replaces Goh Chok Tong as prime minister later this year will be to tackle the steep slide in the birth rate, according to a newspaper interview last month.
As the fertility debate stirs up commentary, a group of high school students recently suggested one answer may be to develop an irresistibly romantic resort on small islands just off Singapore's southern coast.