It is said that a fifth of Singaporean households employs a foreign domestic helper aka maid. Is this over reliance a good thing?

If parents are still actively involved and helpers assist, it is not a bad thing, but if kids become handicapped, then it is a scary thing for the next generation, I have seen a 19 year old gal who do not know how to pack her luggage or tie her hair, and she is as normal as normal can be and is starting her law degree soon. studies and only studies but with barely any life skills.

Hiring maids doesn't necessarily result in higher productivity at work. There is no causation there.

Additionally, I'm not sure what you mean by over-reliance here. Let's define the opportunity cost of the income-earner without a helper as X and the total wages of the domestic helper as Y.

• If X is more than or equal to Y, then I don't think there is an over-reliance.

• If X is less than Y and the income-earner still insists on hiring a domestic helper because he/she cannot cope otherwise, then that is probably an over-reliance.

Otherwise, I don't think there is anything socially wrong with hiring a domestic helper. It is the way you treat the person that is an issue, other than that, you are paying the helper to value-add to your life by taking care of the domestic chores. Whether the wages are sufficient is another issue altogether.

Additionally, just because you hire a domestic helper, doesn't mean you still can't do the household chores or spend time with your children yourself. If your company allows part-time work arrangements or WFH, or if you're self-employed, it is entirely possible to continue to care for your child while earning an income, albeit tedious.

As for productivity at work, it is no surprise that it is pathetically low. It is typical of Asian cultures to equate the Number of hours seen at work = Value added to the company. But we all know that is a flawed heuristic. The relationship between the amount of time spent on work and the value produced is not linear.

Even in my schooling days, I see my peers studying for prolonged periods of time even though they were already unproductive, even counter-intuitively sacrificing their sleep. Unsurprisingly, they did not perform as well during tests and examinations. When you bring such behaviour and mindset to the workplace, the results will inevitably still be the same.​​​