SMALL FAMILIES IMPROVEMENT SCHEME (Increase in minimum monthly income)

Mr Chia Shi Teck asked the Minister for Community Development how many households qualify under the Small Families Improvement Scheme and, if the number is small, whether he will increase the minimum monthly income to S$1,000 per month and subsequently adjust upwards with inflation.

The Minister for Community Development (Mr Yeo Cheow Tong): Mr Speaker, Sir, about 8,600 households will be eligible for the Small Families Improvement Scheme.

The Scheme is meant to encourage poor families to keep their families small so that they can concentrate more resources and attention on fewer children. The $750 per month income limit each for husband and wife covers roughly the lowest 20 percentile of the population. The other conditions reduce the percentage of eligible households to 3%. These conditions ensure that the Scheme reaches the intended target group.

We do not intend to raise the wage limit from $750 to $1,000, as families where the husband and wife are both earning $1,000 per month cannot be considered poor.

We realise that among the target group of low income families, many have irregular incomes which vary from month to month. We will therefore exercise some flexibility in the implementation of the Scheme, to give the benefit of the doubt to marginal cases with incomes close to the limit.

The percentage of families who qualify for the Scheme will drop over time as education levels and incomes rise. After the Scheme has been in operation for several years, we will revise it in the light of experience. But we do not intend to index the income criterion to inflation as this automatic linkage sets a dangerous precedent.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, what is the rationale behind the eligibility criteria that those who are divorced will not be qualified?

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: This Scheme is intended to help small families upgrade and get out of their poverty trap. It is not intended to help families to become separated. So we should therefore focus the resources of the Scheme on helping to keep families intact, because it is only when the family is intact, can they give the full attention and care to the children.

Mr Heng Chiang Meng: May I ask the Minister what is the racial composition of these 8,600-odd families, and whether it is true that this Scheme is targeted at a particular minority race?

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: Sir, of the 8,600 households eligible for the Scheme, 6,300 (73%) are Chinese, 1,600 (19%) are Malays and 700 (8%) are Indians. As the Member can appreciate, these proportions are very close to our racial composition in the population and therefore the Scheme is not intended for any particular minority group.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Does the Minister agree that broken families - they may be divorced for to one reason or another - also need the same help as those families which are intact?

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: Sir, we should not confuse the objective of helping our families who have divorced with the objective of the Small Families Improvement Scheme (SFIS). The Scheme is targeted at a very specific group of people, which is families, and "families" means that you must have both parents living together with the children and families whose parents have low income and low education. If single families require help, they can approach the relevant agencies for help under separate programmes.

Dr Kanwaljit Soin (Nominated Member): Sir, would the Minister please tell us what are the social conditions underlying the high fertility in the families that qualify for the SFIS? Can I elaborate? We have done away with illiteracy. Literacy is high. So why is it that poorer families tend to have more children while higher educated women tend to have fewer children. That is what I am trying to find out. What is the social reason? Is it lack of family planning? What makes poorer families want to have more children?

Mr Speaker: Dr Soin, I think that is not relevant to the main Question. I suggest you file a separate Question.