Straits Times Interactive
Nov 21, 2004
No money, no looks. Would any woman want to marry them?
Should more be done to help growing number of blue-collar bachelors find love?
By Li Xueying
THE first and last time Mr Tee Che Ho came anywhere close to a romance was when he was 12.
He developed a crush on a schoolmate. But he never told her and she left for a different school the next year.
Mr Tee is now 48. He says he has never dated because he cannot afford to raise a family. He has worked in shipyards and factories and is now unemployed.
Even his 78-year-old widowed mother, Madam Tan Soh Cheng, says his marriage prospects are poor: 'He has no money, no looks, nothing. Why would any woman want him?'
Mr Tee is one of Singapore's many blue-collar bachelors. Manpower Ministry figures show that last year, there were 321,819 single men with secondary school qualifications and below. More than 18,000 of them were unemployed.
While there has been a concerted effort to get more Singaporeans to marry and procreate, lower-educated, low-skilled men have largely fallen under the radar.
The number of men with O-level qualifications and below who remain single after the age of 40 rose from 8 percent in 1990 to 10 per cent in 2000. The proportion of singles among better-educated men stayed at 6 per cent.
This group of lower-educated men came under the spotlight recently when Senior Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan said that heterosexual men who had casual sex abroad were fuelling an 'alarming Aids epidemic'. About 70 per cent of them, he said, 'do not have a Singaporean spouse'.
In interviews with The Sunday Times, these men said they visited prostitutes to satisfy their sexual needs and stave off loneliness.
Mr Foo Kok Keong, 35, a garbage collector who visits Johor periodically for a RM198 (S$86) 'spa package', said: 'We lead very lonely lives and if we don't at least 'buy' some company, we feel frustrated.'
Given a choice, they will choose 'real love' any day, the men said.
Mr Wang Choon Siang, 50, a storeman, said: 'It's not like this is what we want. If I can, I would want my own wife, my own family.'
These men have largely been overlooked by private and government matchmaking agencies. D'Match director Ho Hoon Choo said his agency screened out these men as 'they will be rejected by all our girls'.
Government matchmaker Social Development Service (SDS), which caters to non-graduate singles, acknowledged that most of its members are diploma and O-level holders with non-manual skilled jobs.
MPs interviewed say more can - and should be - done for these men, but stopped short of saying the Government should set up a matchmaking agency for them.
Minister of State for Education Chan Soo Sen said: 'It's unlikely the Government will do something, but if voluntary groups are set up to help them, it's conceivable that the Government will work with them.'
This may involve funding specific projects and co-organising activities under the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports umbrella, he said.
Mr Sin Boon Ann, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Community Development, Youth and Sports, said the ministry can also consider training people in the personalised matchmaking of the old days. SDS should also look at how it can better reach out to this group of people, he added.
To that, the agency's deputy general manager Sophia Chia said that next year, it will be doing more in tying up with employers to provide blue-collar workers with corporate membership.
'We're looking at hospitals and manufacturing companies to focus on those who are doing shift work,' she said. Those already on its list include the Metal Industries Workers' Union and Richland Logistics Services.
It will have its work cut out in getting the men hitched. Already, among its members with PSLE qualifications and below, there are 7,574 men, almost double the 4,234 women.
At the same time, Mr Sin and his GPC member Penny Low wonder 'if it's meaningful for these men to marry'.
Ms Low said: 'We need to consider if they have the financial ability to start a family.' What's more imperative is to help them 'upgrade' themselves so that they become more attractive to women who want their husbands to be steady breadwinners, she added.
Mr Sin said: 'For bachelors who find it difficult supporting themselves with their low salaries, there may be no point in bringing in another set of humans to add to their problems.'
But sociologist Paulin Straughan said everyone deserved to be given a chance of settling down.
'We should not pre-judge them. We should respect that they are sensible, will do their sums and have maybe one child if that's all that they can afford.'
(WHO'S NEXT TO REMAIN SINGLE?!
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