HONG KONG: It is not enough that women are given access to education, but if the world wants to rein in population growth as a way of tackling climate change and resource depletion, governments must also provide them with equal job opportunities, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said yesterday.
He was responding to a question from former US president Bill Clinton on whether he would recommend educating more young women as a way to cap the world population.
Earlier in their conversation, Mr Lee said that the strains on the earth's resources go back to the 'fundamental question' of how many people the planet can hold.
'We are now at 6.7 billion, it is going to be 9.5 billion before 2050, they say it will tail off with the education of women in the undeveloped parts of the world. Maybe, maybe not,' he said. 'But population growth is one of the basic problems societies must confront.'
Women are the key to population control but 'you have to couple an educated woman with equal job opportunities', he added.
'If you just educate them and keep them at home, they are back to the old pattern of life, and they are home makers and they produce children. In many Islamic countries, you have that situation. They have educated wives and no job opportunities so they are kept at home and have big families.'
He gave the example of Singapore, where the result of educating women and giving them employment opportunities is that the fertility rate has fallen from 4 to 1.29 - a problem the Government is trying to remedy.
'Now the woman decides that she doesn't want to get married until she's 30-plus. After she gets married, she postpones childbirth because she and her husband want to build up a nest egg and the net result is that they have a fertility problem and they have one child,' Mr Lee said.
'And worse, 33 per cent of men and women in Singapore are singles, they are quite comfortable with their lives.'
A falling birth rate may be an issue for Singapore, but the lesson for countries wanting to control population is that 'there is no use just educating the women, you have to make sure the government applies the second half of the formula - equal job opportunities', Mr Lee concluded.
