PERISIK2 DAJJAL KECIL?

Better families, not more babies, say groups

2010/03/11

KUALA LUMPUR: All Women's Action Society Malaysia said the government's premarital training programme should guide those who want to get married and newlyweds.
Its senior programme officer, Abigail de Vries, said such programmes should be used to cultivate happy and healthy families, not encourage more babies.
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"It's up to the men and women to decide if and when they want to have children. Women must be allowed to make choices freely on all matters pertaining to marriage and children.

"It's their right. That's how the government should encourage women."

She said the government, through its programmes and policies, must ensure that women could decide for themselves and should not blindly encourage women to have more babies.

On the trend that more women are staying single, de Vries said it should not be viewed as a problem but rather as a sign that women were advancing in society.

Women's Aid Organisation social works manager Wong Su Zane said communication skills and financial planning should be part of the government programme.

"I am an instructor of one such programme, the Smart Start, and it is designed for people who want to get married, not to encourage marriages."

She said more women were staying single because they were more empowered now, with higher expectation and more roles to play in society.

Wong said she had seen many professional women opting to stay single because they were worried about the negative things they had heard about marriages.

"They hear about their rights being violated and other negative things about marriages, and they ask why should they subject themselves to it," she said.

Clinical psychologist Urmilah Dass said the trend was understandable as statistics showed that there were more women than men in universities.

"Before this, women were not given as much opportunities as men but now we see the population of women exceeding men in universities.

"Now that women have financial security, they do not have to get married for financial reasons but more for companionship."

She said pursuing education could be one of the reasons why more women stay single.


"And the older you get, your needs and what you look for in a man may increase, hence the delay in marriage."

She said the declining fertility rate and increasing number of child adoptions could be linked to older women who might have problems getting pregnant or worried about the difficulties of bearing children.

"Also with their education and exposure to the society, they have higher level of consciousness and feel more for children who do not have parents."