Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Singapore sex drive hinges on housing?

Billionaire Bhupendra Kumar Modi, who became a Singapore citizen last year, is urging his adopted nation to end a ban on young singles owning state-built homes because it hurts one of the city’s key goals: making babies.

Modi’s Global Citizens Forum, which the Spice Group chairman started this year to help youths worldwide, will ask the government to change a policy that only allows single adults over 35 to buy flats built by the Housing & Development Board. Modi says lowering the age to 25 would encourage sexual relationships and earlier marriages, helping to counter a slump in the birthrate that’s depriving the economy of workers.

“Most of the girls and boys these days would like to have sex before they marry,” said Modi, 64, who has three children and five grandchildren. “There are no virgin marriages.”

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is treading a line between reining in soaring property prices that put housing ownership beyond the means of many Singaporeans, and encouraging more citizens to settle down and start a family sooner. Over the past decade, Singaporeans are marrying later and now barely produce enough children to replace one parent.

Modi’s proposal may touch a nerve in Singapore, especially among religious leaders and others who oppose premarital sex. Full story...

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