议长先生，
我今天想从一个年轻人的视角，探讨一个我们都非常关心的问题：在新加坡生活，怎样才算是“活得好”？
这个问题看似简单，其实意味深长。活得好，不只是收入高、房子大、经济增长快。活得好，更是我们有没有时间和精力陪伴家人，以及有没有空间去探索和成长。
我今天想分享三个“活得好”的标准：
第一，是再多的金钱也买不到的 “时间”。
这次的财政预算案其中一大重点是人工智能，也就是大家熟悉的AI。我支持新加坡与时俱进，拥抱AI。
工作上用了AI工具以后，效率提高了，但工作量也可能不减反增。有国际研究开始证实了这一点：
- 使用AI工具不仅没有减少员工的工作量，反而让他们变得更忙。
- 因为AI工具加快了他们的工作步伐、所以他们的工作范围不知不觉也变广了、而工作时间也就悄悄地变长了。
我举此例，是希望我们在拥抱AI的同时也不忘正视AI带来的潜在风险。这不单是淘汰工作岗位，而可能是增加工作强度，造成职场倦怠。
若我们在采用AI时不设立足够的防御机制，那我们也有可能会陷入这个局面。
我呼吁政府和国人在探讨AI时，不仅要考虑它能如何助我们提高生产力，同时也要思考如何让这个这个新兴科技助我们腾出更多的时间陪伴家人和朋友。
第二，是有了时间但没有精力也做不到的 “陪伴”。
我和同龄朋友和年轻的淡滨尼居民经常聊到的话题是：生不生孩子。大家最大的考量并非金钱，而是担心自己成为一名精疲力尽、有心无力的家长。
大家都希望能有足够的时间和精力成为理想中的爸爸妈妈，给予孩子高质量的陪伴。2021年婚姻与生育调查结果显示，虽然超过九成已婚国人想生两个或以上孩子，但实际上有一半以上仅生了一个或没有选择生孩子。
议长先生，我支持今年财政预算案所推出的一系列减轻家庭负担的援助措施。与此同时，我也希望政府能给予国人一系列配套支持，包括：
- 实行按孩子数量提供育儿假；
- 推行有薪看护假；
- 以及将灵活工作安排指导原则升级为具有约束力的政策。
这能让更多国人有时间和精力组织家庭、陪伴家人。
第三，是搭配时间和精力的 “探索空间”。
AI可以取代很多东西，但不能取代个人经验和判断能力。正因如此，我们应该给予年轻一代国人更多空间去探索、去成长，激发他们的想象力和使命感。
我建议进一步降低对考试的注重，如通过试行小学直通中学的10年直通车计划，让学生们选择是否参加小六会考。与其花一年多时间准备笔试，我们更 应该在关键的青春时期侧重栽培孩子们的同理心、好奇心、创造力和使命感。正是这些难以衡量的特质，才能让年轻国人在AI时代继续发光发热。
议长先生，我支持今年的财政预算案。新加坡必须“逆水行舟，不进则退”，须继续发展，也须继续保持竞争力。
但我也希望我们在发展和提高竞争力的同时也切记“国泰民安”的根本，不只是国家强盛，更是每一位新加坡人都能过上实实在在的好日子：
- 有时间，去陪伴家人；
- 有精力，组织家庭并伴随孩子成长；
- 有探索空间，以确保每一代都能过得比上一代好。
接下来，我将用英语详细分享我的观察和建议。
Mr Speaker,
I rise today to offer a complementary perspective as a young millennial Singaporean. For many of us, the question we want an answer to is not whether Singapore is competitive. It is whether Singapore is still a place where we can live well.
I wrote this speech in an attempt to answer one question that I believe is core to Singapore as we chart our next phase: what does it mean to live well in Singapore?
In his Budget speech, the Prime Minister spoke of growth, innovation and resilience. These are important. But a good life is not built only on GDP per capita or AI adoption rates. It is built on time – time for the people we love. It is built on presence – the ability to be there for our families and communities. And it is built on space – space for Singaporeans to grow, explore and become themselves.
Budget 2026 already speaks extensively to Singapore’s competitiveness. So today, I would like to speak about Singapore’s liveability. Because for my generation, these are not one and the same.
Time: The Resource We Cannot Print
Mr Speaker, let me start with time.
A significant portion of the Prime Minister’s Budget speech was devoted to AI. Indeed, AI will reshape how we work, how businesses compete and how public services are delivered. I support the ambition to harness AI as a strategic advantage.
But I also want to acknowledge something many Singaporeans feel but few are saying out loud: AI fatigue is real. It is the feeling that no matter how fast we learn, the ground is always shifting beneath us. It is the worry that tools meant to make us more productive, to make our lives easier are actually leaving us with more to do.
This is not just anecdotal. A recent Harvard Business Review article shared the findings from an ongoing study which tracks how generative AI changed work habits at a US-based technology company with more than 200 staff over eight months. The findings were striking. The adoption of AI tools did not reduce workload - they consistently intensified it. AI accelerated tasks, which raised the expectation for speed, which deepened reliance on AI, which expanded the scope of work, which further increased the density and volume of work for each employee.
The researchers warned that what looks like higher productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep and growing cognitive strain as employees juggle multiple AI-enabled tasks and workflows. Over time, it will become harder to differentiate between genuine productivity gains from unsustainable intensity. For employees, the cumulative effect is fatigue and burnout.
This matters for Singapore, especially as we call on more Singaporeans to embrace AI at work. The evidence suggests that the risk is not only job displacement, but also job intensification. The risk is not that AI replaces us - though it will replace some jobs - but that it makes us run faster on the same treadmill. AI adoption without guardrails will not give Singaporeans their time back - it may take more of it away.
I urge the Government and all Singaporeans to think not just about how AI can make us more productive, but about how it can give us our time back. Singapore’s average full-time working week stands at nearly 44 hours, not including unpaid overtime hours. This is among the highest in the developed world. 61% of Singaporean employees report feeling exhausted. Burnout costs the Singapore economy an estimated $15.7 billion annually in lost productivity.
Mr Speaker, productivity gains do not automatically become human gains. Without deliberate policy choices, they tend to remain employer gains. If AI can automate routine tasks, what comes next should not only be what additional tasks can be added to an employee’s plate at work. Perhaps it is that they leave the office on time most days to have dinner with their families, and not only on quarterly Eat With Your Family Day.
Last year, the Prime Minister spoke of building a “We First” society. A society where we look out for each other, volunteer and contribute. I support this vision. But realising it requires something that money cannot buy: time. A “We First” society needs people who have the time and energy to show up for each other. And I hope this will be one of the design goals of our national AI strategy, not an afterthought.
Presence: The Conditions for Care
This brings me to presence, which requires both time and energy.
I want to share tidbits from conversations with friends, peers and young Tampines residents about growing our families – about having a child, or having another child. These conversations rarely begin with money. They begin with a pause. Sometimes a sigh. And then, almost always, a shared concern that we cannot be the parents we want to be. Present. Engaged. Patient after a long day at work instead of giving in to screentime because we are exhausted and need a moment of peace.
The Government’s own data reflects this. The 2021 Marriage and Parenthood Survey shows that over 90% of married respondents want to have two or more children. The reality however, is that over half of these married respondents had only 1 or no children. Our total fertility rate has since plunged below 1, holding steady at 0.97 since 2023. This gap between aspiration and reality is not a gap in desire. It is a gap in enabling conditions.
Young Singaporeans today are not overwhelmed because we do not try hard enough. We are overwhelmed because we are encouraged to get married, have children, to remain in the workforce, to upskill, to embrace AI, to volunteer, to care for our aging parents so they can age in place. Yet policies and workplace culture have not fully caught up.
Budget 2026 contains welcome measures for families, ranging from additional Child LifeSG Credits, enhanced preschool subsidies and extended means-testing support. Such financial measures matter. And we also need a supplementary set of policies to complement them, focussed on giving Singaporeans back the time and energy to actually build a family, and parent with presence, patience and joy.
This is why I will be putting forward proposals on per child childcare leave, caregiving leave and having actual, enforceable flexible work arrangement policies rather than guidelines at the upcoming Committee of Supply debate. These will help us to better support Singaporean families as they grow and age, and hopefully, lead to higher fertility and stronger family outcomes.
Space: Room to Grow, Explore and Become
Finally, Mr Speaker, I would like to speak about space.
I have spoken about time and how the economy consumes it. I also spoke about presence and how families need it. Now I want to talk about something that connects the two: whether our system leaves enough space for our people, especially our youths, to grow, explore and become themselves.
Let me start with our young. The Budget speaks of the importance of strengthening AI literacy and ensuring that young Singaporeans develop rigorous foundations so they use AI wisely and not as a shortcut. I agree, and would like to ask: what are rigorous foundations in a world where AI can generate code, analyse large data sets and even compose music? Surely the competitive advantage is no longer what we know, but who we are. Our capacity for empathy. For creativity that comes from lived experience and not pattern recognition. Our ability to sit with uncertainty and not be consumed by anxiety. Our willingness to try something difficult, fail and try again.
I welcome the long overdue comprehensive review of our education system. If AI is going to change the nature of work, then surely it must also change what we value in education. And changing what we value requires changing how we measure. Singaporean families collectively spent $1.8 billion on private tuition in 2023 - up 64% from a decade ago. This is not parental excess. It is a rational response to a system that sorts early and sorts sharply. The PSLE, for all its merits in maintaining a set of standards, should not be defining a child’s sense of self-worth at an age when they should be discovering who they are and what they care about.
I am not calling for us to abandon the bell curve. I am calling for a rethink of how we use it. Rather than competitive grading and sorting, we should use it as a diagnostic tool to track a child’s progress over time, identify specific learning needs and celebrate growth. When access to opportunities is too tightly tied to early academic performance, those of us who take longer to find our footing may find some doors closing before we have had a chance to knock.
This space in our education system should be complemented by space in our economy. I welcome the Budget’s emphasis on lifelong learning. Lifelong learning for youths of today may also mean lifelong experimentation – the freedom and space to pursue different paths, combine different strengths and build a working life that reflects who we are, not just what the market demands of us at this very moment.
Some of our youths are already doing this. They are building portfolio careers – combining roles, projects, and pursuits that do not fit neatly into a single job title. This is not just a collection of side hustles. It is a reimagining of work that values flexibility, autonomy and skill growth. It reflects the very qualities we say we want in our workforce: adaptability, entrepreneurial thinking and the willingness to take calculated risks.
I look forward to hearing more about the mandate of the new statutory board formed by the merger of Workforce Singapore and SkillsFuture Singapore. I hope it will build complementary and updated frameworks for career development, labour protection and skills certification to accommodate diverse work arrangements while safeguarding longer-term income security and career progression.
Conclusion: A Budget for Living, Not Just Competing
To conclude, Mr Speaker, I am for growth. I am for staying competitive. I am for the adoption of AI. Singapore must remain economically vibrant, strategically relevant and globally connected. Budget 2026 is titled “Securing Our Future in a Changed World”. I support this aspiration.
And I humbly suggest that securing our future is not only about securing our competitiveness. It is about securing the conditions for a good life. A life with time for the people we love. A life where we can be present for our children, our parents and our communities. A life with enough space – in our schools, our workplaces and our neighbourhoods – for people to grow into who they are meant to become.
For six decades, we have built a culture that equates progress with movement. It has made many of us – myself included – feel guilty when we are still, because if we are not striving, then surely we must be falling behind. Perhaps this explains why we are the fastest pedestrians in the world, according to the Pace of Life project conducted by Professor Richard Wiseman.
Well sometimes, progress is indeed about moving forward. But sometimes, as I learnt after leaving my first job at the age of 31, progress is about floating – catching our breath, looking around, noticing things we would have otherwise missed when rushing from point A to point B.
I believe Singaporeans are ready for a conversation about what we are willing to prioritise to build a Singapore that is both successful and sustainable. I hope the Government will be brave enough to measure what matters most. To trust Singaporeans with flexibility, with dignity, with a little more space to breathe and to be human.
Mr Speaker, I support the Budget with the observations I have made.
