<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Phase in social benefits for new citizens to tweak immigration flow
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I REFER to Mr Ngiam Tong Dow's thoughtful commentary on Thursday, 'Lest we become strangers'. One way to slow down Singapore's population import is to phase in the availability of social services to new immigrants.
Housing benefits, for instance. Instead of making them available as soon as one becomes a citizen, the Government can make them available only after 10 years.
Another example is health benefits. The Government can also tweak its policy on hospitalisation to make it a graduated scheme where the longer you are a citizen, the higher your subsidy. Such measures would iron out the social inequities that currently exist between Singapore-born and new citizens.
After all, as Mr, Ngiam pointed out, 'existing citizens would have paid for those social services over a lifetime of tax payments; the new citizens would not'.
Graduating benefits are nothing new. Many employers, including the civil service, vary annual leave eligibility according to length of service. Some begin with seven days for new employees and raise it to 10 after five years of service, and so on. Long service awards are also given out according to the number of years served.
If migration these days is 'economics-driven', it is perfectly logical for the host country to vary the quantum of social benefits to new immigrants on an economics basis. Such graduated schemes will also have the desired effect of slowing population import, which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong touched on recently.
As the Government is still searching for ways and means to make existing citizens feel better about its liberal immigration policy and urging them to welcome new citizens with open arms, one other way to achieve this goal is to increase social benefits for the Singapore-born. Make hospitalisation benefits free for Singaporeans at age 62. Such a measure will be greeted warmly by people and make them feel treasured.
Patrick Low
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I REFER to Mr Ngiam Tong Dow's thoughtful commentary on Thursday, 'Lest we become strangers'. One way to slow down Singapore's population import is to phase in the availability of social services to new immigrants.
Housing benefits, for instance. Instead of making them available as soon as one becomes a citizen, the Government can make them available only after 10 years.
Another example is health benefits. The Government can also tweak its policy on hospitalisation to make it a graduated scheme where the longer you are a citizen, the higher your subsidy. Such measures would iron out the social inequities that currently exist between Singapore-born and new citizens.
After all, as Mr, Ngiam pointed out, 'existing citizens would have paid for those social services over a lifetime of tax payments; the new citizens would not'.
Graduating benefits are nothing new. Many employers, including the civil service, vary annual leave eligibility according to length of service. Some begin with seven days for new employees and raise it to 10 after five years of service, and so on. Long service awards are also given out according to the number of years served.
If migration these days is 'economics-driven', it is perfectly logical for the host country to vary the quantum of social benefits to new immigrants on an economics basis. Such graduated schemes will also have the desired effect of slowing population import, which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong touched on recently.
As the Government is still searching for ways and means to make existing citizens feel better about its liberal immigration policy and urging them to welcome new citizens with open arms, one other way to achieve this goal is to increase social benefits for the Singapore-born. Make hospitalisation benefits free for Singaporeans at age 62. Such a measure will be greeted warmly by people and make them feel treasured.
Patrick Low
