Opinion | Baby bonuses fail to address the fear of falling behind

When one of my seniors from medical school was pregnant during her surgical residency, she planned the exact date of her C-section so she could complete her training on time. When I asked why she didn’t consider taking maternity leave to recuperate afterwards, she said she couldn’t bring herself to lag behind her peers. “I didn’t want motherhood to slow me down,” she said.

In medicine, it is common for women to delay childbearing until after their early career years, often into their mid-thirties or later. When I speak to friends in professional careers such as law, accounting and consulting, they echo a similar sentiment.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s policy address on September 16 included an increased newborn bonus of HK$30,000 (US$3,800) for second and later children and extended the scheme for three years. Less than a month earlier, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s National Day Rally speech promised almost S$70,000 (US$55,000) in direct support for every child. Two cities with record-low birth rates have both reached for cash.

Hong Kong’s bonus has run since 2023 and paid out about HK$1.56 billion to more than 77,000 applicants as of the end of August. Births in the year to June were only 29,700, roughly half the 59,800 of a decade earlier. Singapore’s resident fertility rate fell to a record low 0.87 births per woman in 2025 despite similar support.

The pattern starts early. Parents in both cities know what a child needs to get ahead: kindergarten interviews and tutorial centres in Hong Kong, Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) and enrichment classes in Singapore. Singaporean households spent S$1.8 billion on private tuition in 2023; in Hong Kong, parents invest more than HK$1 million in their child’s education from primary school to university – about three times the global average.

Cash lowers the price of starting a family but doesn’t touch the price of falling behind. Subsidies don’t help a child underperforming at school or a parent pausing a career to raise one.

Nirmala Rao, professor emeritus of education at the University of Hong Kong, sees the same thread running through both moments. “The cultural environment that shapes the anxieties of parents and children at the starting gate of education may also influence an adult’s hesitation at the crossroads between career and parenthood,” she said.

The two cities are built the same way: globally connected financial hubs where talent is abundant and resources are scarce. Growing up in either, you imbibe the logic of survival early: work hard, be extremely good at what you do and watch your feet so you don’t trip.

That mentality starts in school and carries into the workplace. In cities this contained and with social circles this established, everyone knows what everyone else is doing. Peer comparison is hard to shake.

I did well enough to get into a good high school. Later on, I entered medical school, surrounded by the same friends. Years later, I work alongside those same people in the healthcare system and observe their career progression.

Parenthood is essentially a forward-looking project, a bet on the future and a lifelong commitment. It’s hard to imagine a prospect of that sort as enticing; you already feel drained by keeping up in such a fast-paced society, much less bringing a child into one.

When I picture having a child, my mind drifts to the paperwork, the parent-volunteering hours needed to get into the right kindergarten and the endless exams that follow through school. The thought makes me shudder. As reluctant as I am to subject my future child to the stress and competition I went through, could I bear to hold back?

Eventually, the toll of excellence that parents levy on children becomes the burden children must carry.

Neither the baby bonuses nor enhanced parental leave packages offered by both governments resolve the deep-seated structural and cultural issues at play preventing young couples from aspiring to have children. In an increasingly competitive world, a cheque can’t compete with a bet you’re weighing across the next few decades.

Real change won’t come from subsidies or better leave policies, even though these matter. It has to come from what we consider a successful life. Protected parenting time or part-time job tracks don’t fix anything on their own if slowing down is still seen as falling behind. What counts as “having made it” has to change, or the choice of parenthood will keep looking irrational to the people making it.

My senior was able to return to her studies and light clinical duties three weeks after giving birth. She completed her training on schedule.