SINGAPORE: The Baby Bonus scheme will not be extended to the fifth child and beyond, said Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon.
She was replying to a question from MP Lee Bee Wah of Ang Mo Kio GRC in Parliament on Monday.
She said: "For those low-income (families), I do agree that they face a financial difficulty, but it is a policy that we don't encourage them or incentivise them to have more children, especially because of this big cash bonus.
"So we hope that they should raise their existing children properly and educate them well and hope that they can get out of poverty."
Under the Baby Bonus scheme, the first and second child in a family will get a cash gift of S$3,000 each from the government, while the amount goes up to S$6,000 each for the third and fourth child.
Although the Baby Bonus scheme has not been extended to the fifth child and beyond, Mrs Yu-Foo pointed out that this year's Marriage and Parenthood Package has extended the Baby Bonus co-savings component to the fifth child and beyond.
This means that for these children, the government will match up to S$18,000 of savings put in by parents.
As this is no less than the support provided for the first four children, Mrs Yu-Foo said parents who have five children or more and who are able to co-save are in no way disadvantaged. - CNA/vm
Extracted from : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/376043/1/.html
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