Grand Challenges and Inductive Methods - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Grand Challenges and Inductive Methods. Answer: Introduction: In recent time, the number of birth per woman in Singapore has declined from 5.8 to 1.2. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has been decreasing since 1988 and the last year was the lowest point. The topic of this study has been selected as the explanatory factors behind the declining TFR in order to formulate policies and programmes to raise Singapore's TFR. It has been noticed that Singapore has been experiencing a lower rate of growth in population mainly the reason behind this low birth rate. The causes of lower birth rate are various: In recent economic condition, the people are marrying in later life and they are having a child in the later stage of their lives. The reasons behind this probably the women are now focusing more on career and they are now receiving degrees. Women cannot have babies in the later age of their lives as the biological issues. Moreover, in Singapore, people love to stay single and there are fewer families. Hence, the birth rate has been falling, as a result of this, young people in the Singapore population decreases. Women are no willing to settle down early in life and they prefer more income and educational status. In recent time, the habit of smaller families has been the preferences for the young couple and the reason behind this is the increasing number of working women in Singapore. As stated by Cheung (2010), women find it difficult to maintain the work-life balance, hence they choose fewer children. Age Group (women in Singapore) Year 2000 Year 2010 25-29 46% 62% 30-34 22% 31% 35-39 16% 20% Table 1: Singlehood Indicators of Women (Source: Straughan, 2013) Moreover, the cost of living is increasing in Singapore; therefore, the responsibility to raise a child is getting optional for a married couple. Housing price and land value are increasing in Singapore that makes costly to have family and children for a couple. The Recent lifestyle of the working women who do not follow healthy lifestyle and tend to smoke and alcoholic in early life faces issue in the rear and giving birth to children. In nowadays, birth control is easy for a woman and economic affluence is needed. Such values and trends have led to some couple to have no children at all. Consequences of low fertility rate in Singapore It has been observed that dual-income in the family is increasing and pricey city-state with lack of time for the family lead to the lower fertility rate for the women. The Singapore government provides four months of maternity leaves and the government provides the second week of paternity leave as well. Not only in Singapore but also other parts of Asian countries also face this, Japan and South Korea are major examples of this. Medical care and retirement incomes are largely financed by the taxes of young people in rich countries like Singapore. Low rates of birth can lead to fewer women and men of young working ages, therefore a small tax base will be formed to finance social security (Straughan, 2013). Moreover, lower fertility rate can decrease the rate of scientific experiments and innovations as the innovation comes up from the brain of young people. The young population are more adaptable and in starting a new business, it requires a more young generation. In the workplace, the number of young generation will be shrinking and this may result that each of the young population needs to pay more taxes in order to increase fund in projects (Jones, 2007). Singapore Government is trying to encourage the people to get married and have children. In Singapore, the Government is paying $18,000 for the couple who are having five or more children (Nargund, 2009). Government is trying to provide an extra rebate in taxes for those women who have children in their young ages. Government is planning to set up new child care centres in order to look after newborn babies while the parents will be at work. Singapore Urban Redevelopment authority put a limit on selling the single-bedroom flat in order to put a curb on singlehood. Moreover, the women need to make a healthy lifestyle and raising awareness in family and community can help to manage the situation. An open and regular discussion on community and in media is needed to manage the alarming situation. Government funding is necessary and womens perception in this scenario is vital. Research objectives To identify the reasons behind low Total Fertility Rate in Singapore To explore the consequences of low Total Fertility Rate in Singapore To recognise the generalise factors to manage a low rate of population growth in Singapore To formulate policies and programmes to raise Singapore's Total Fertility Rate What are the explanatory factors behind low Total Fertility Rate in Singapore? What are the consequences of low Total Fertility Rate in Singapore? What are the factors to manage a low rate of population growth in Singapore? What would be the policies and programmes in order to raise Singapores low Total Fertility Rate? Qualitative Research Design Qualitative research design is based on mainly social constructivism perspective. In qualitative research, the research questions are based on research problems (Clemence, Doise Lorenzi-Cioldi, 2014). The benefits of the qualitative research design are that it can be done with small sample size. The data collection procedure can be done through observational and through the interview. Interpretation of the data can be done through a combination of the perspective of the researcher and collected data. In this research, I would be doing the research through qualitative research design and the main focus of qualitative research would be an inference based on respondents' perspectives. I would spend times of preparing research questions and these would be designed to collect participants' perspectives of opinions, data and experiences. I would do field research in order to collect the data for qualitative research. The field research site can be defined as a socially defined sphere that has fluid physical boundaries. In order to select a research site, some of the important factors are unfamiliarity, suitability and complexity (Eisenhardt, Graebner Sonenshein, 2014). The research site can encompass various social activities and relations that can stimulate data. Moreover, in this research, I will choose an unfamiliar site that would allow me to discern cultural events along with societal relations. I will also consider some factors like physical access and personal characteristics in this site. I will choose a fertility centre in Singapore, Scotts Road, Virtus Fertility Centre. In this fertility centre, I would like to research about reasons behind low Total Fertility Rate. In a fertility centre, I may have some new perspectives of the low birth rate in Singapore from doctors and from some visitors. In addition, I have a deal with a gatekeeper who has the official role to control the access of field research site. I would take a consent letter from the managerial body of this fertility clinic and negotiate the gatekeeper in order to conduct the qualitative research. Moreover, my role in the research would be two types, role of a field researcher and a social within the site. In the research site, I would like to adjust and adapt that would help me to monitor and behaviour and attitudes of the informants. In order to conduct the research, I would like to make some close relationships with some informants who can inform me on the field site. I will be interviewing some contrasting types of informants in order to collect the data. I will be interviewing 4 physicians in this clinic about the reasons and consequences of low Total Fertility Rate. Physicians have immense knowledge about fertility and the recent trend of women in having children. Physicians can provide various viewpoints and interesting yet conflicting knowledge. In this research, I will choose physicians as informants who are totally familiar with the ideas of Total Fertility Rate and the chosen physicians will not be a novice, however, they will have intimate experiences in the research site characterises. Data collection process and strategies I would choose to this research, phenomenological qualitative research design as this particular research refers to an experience towards an understanding of the research. The phenomenological study is the combination of research method, documents understanding and interviewing with visiting the sites (Flick, 2015). The participants are examined in this research and phenomenological study needs to develop in conducting a lot of interviews. In order to collect the data for this study, I will conduct in-depth interviews to four physicians. I will prepare 8 open-ended questions about reasons of low Total Fertility Rate and its impact on the nation and population. The questions will be mainly structural and the questions will cover activities, issues, relations of fertility rate. These interviews will be face-to-face and I would show interest in responses of the informants and encourage them to elaborate their responses. I would like to inform them about the interviews and ask them to ta ke out sometimes. The interviews will be a conversation and the informants will provide their description. The in-depth interview will be happening one-to-one basis and members can share their feelings, experiences and insights. Data analysis technique in qualitative research will be thematic analysis as I will try to break the data as codes based on inferential and descriptive. Coding and concept formation are the method through which the researcher systematically conceptualises the data into categories that are based on the abstract derived from the data (Mackey Gass, 2015). I will segregate the data findings from both literatures and from the interviews and scatter them as codes. This themes or codes can be developed from new concepts and examine the relationship among the codes. I will mainly use open coding in the preliminary categories in order to recognise data pattern. I will pen down some of the basic coding words from the interviews and open coding may extend to the analytic notes. Quantitative method emphasises mostly on objective measurements and numerical analysis can be done in quantitative research design. Quantitative research mainly focuses on collecting numerical data. Moreover, I would mainly follow the descriptive type study as descriptive study mainly aims at observations. Moreover, as stated by Neuman Robson (2014), the descriptive study can establish relations between variables. In this quantitative analysis, I will collect the numerical data from the respondents conducting the valid survey. In order to conduct the survey, I will prepare 15 close-ended multiple choice type questions. Therefore, the instrument of quantitative research design is a questionnaire. This questionnaire will contain two types of questions, first, one will be based on a demographic understanding of the respondents and the second one will be based on the subjective questions of low birth rating in Singapore. This questionnaire will be emailed to the respondents. The respond ents need to respond to all 15 questions. The respondents will be given 15 days in order to provide their responses. Quantitative research usually collects data from the large sample and these people are the representative of the population. Moreover, the same questionnaire will be provided to all respondents; however, the chance of repeatability is high. In collecting the data, I will collect the data from the Singapore women who are aged between 22 and 32. Moreover, the problem in this research study is the low birth rate in Singapore and the young women can give the answer correctly. I have to study the community in order to target the women of this age. In Singapore, more than 71% women are over 25 years of age and women comprise 59% of the labour force. However, it would not be possible for me to study to a lot of women situated in the Singapore. I will provide a notice on social media community page (Facebook) about my survey. Interested women will provide their feedback on my survey topic. I will ask them about the emails after showing my consent letter of the university. I will email them m y survey questionnaire and ask them to fulfil all the requirements with their names if they want to. It is not possible for me to focus on specific part of Singapore as I may lose some valid points about the low birth rate in Singapore. In this study, the independent variables are TFR and high cost of living and women consent. These independent variables will be linked up with the dependent variables. As stated by Palinkas et al. (2015), quantitative research design is helpful for a study to gather the knowledge on generalising concept and the researcher can use the tools like computer software and a statistical tool to analyse the data. I am going to use SPSS, a statistical analysis in order to analyse the data collected from the survey. The findings of the study will be presented in tables and excel-bar graphs. The findings of the study will be reviewed by using literature review findings. The population of the study is the women between 22 and 32 ages in Singapore. However, the sampling will be larger for this study as almost 75% of women in Singapore are above 25 years of age. In order to simplify the study, the researcher will reach the sample through Facebook community page. It is not possible for me to reach this large number of population and Facebook will help me to reach such population. I will aim to collect the responses at least from 150 women from Singapore. Therefore, the chosen sample will be 150 (N= 150). This sample will help me to collect the data about the reasons and consequences of low birth rate in Singapore. I will be selecting the sample through simple random sampling technique. Simple random sampling helps the researcher to use a subset of the statistical population through which each of the members of the subset has an equal probability of being selected (Silverman, 2016). There are numerous women who belong to the age from 22 to 32; however, I will choose the sampling through simple random sampling. One criterion of the respondent will be that the respondent has to answer all 15 questions. Population Sample Size Criterion Sampling technique Sample Frame Singapore women aged between 22 and 32 150 Must provide all 15 responses Simple random sampling Facebook Community page, Through e-mail Table 2: Sampling in Quantitative Research design (Source: Self-develop) Measurement of variables can be done through the Nominal and Ordinal sale of measurement. The nominal level of measurement is a classification that can describe the nature of data within the values assigned to variables (Panneleselvam, 2014). I will take nominal reliability technique that will help me to differentiate the data between subjects and items. Examples of nominal classification can be a genre, gender, style and biological species. I will also take the ordinal scale that would allow me to take ordinal data with a rank order. I will sort the data by relevance in order, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Moreover, mean and median values of the data need to take into account in order to allow the measurement of central tendency. As stated by Smith (2015), the nominal level of measurement is discrete categories, whereas, the ordinal scale can be made rank in order. Reliability can be improved through defining and constructing the measure clearly. Moreover, I am going to use two measures that wo uld help me to capture much construct. Multiple measures are more stable than one measure of reliability. I am going to use pilot testing of my study in order to ensure the reliability of the subject and questionnaire. As opined by Taylor, Bogdan DeVault (2015), pilot testing is a small-scale trial. I will send 5 subjective close-ended questions to 15 women who are interested in opening their views. From the pilot testing, I will understand what kind of issues that the women would face in providing their reviews. I will change the frame and wording of the questions if needed. Invalidity of the research, I will use content validity. According to Neuman (2014), content validity refers to measure all aspects of definition that construct's definition. Using multiple measures in reliability can also improve the content validity. Combining multiple measures can help the researcher in capturing the definition of the construct as this is more holistic and constructive. This study will focus on low Total Fertility Rate and this study would highlight the procreation pattern and transform marriage of the women in Singapore. My approach of the study will be sociological as well as structural-environmental approach. I will identify the macro factors of low Total Fertility Rate and its consequences of this. I assume that qualitative research data will bring out the significance of low Total Fertility Rate in Singapore. They can bring out the reasons behind the low birth rate among women. The main reasons can be a different lifestyle, lack of responsibility and easy access to birth control facility. Moreover, the study can bring out the women's perspectives in low birth rate as quantitative analysis will highlight on reasons of women not giving birth to a child. The career-centric women and the independent women are not interested in bearing children. The doctors in the qualitative research design will highlight the consequences of the low birth rate in S ingapore. This study would bring out the influence factors that impact on women, paid work and formal education, determinants of policies and time allocation of women in family matters. This study will bring out the changes in the social environment that have come from capitalist enterprises. Economic driven factors are important as the women try to establish as valued employees rather than giving birth to a child in the house. For a woman, each hour spent away from the work means the potential loss of a woman. In the Singapore context, over parenting and overwork are not issues, however, small geographic expanse can be another issue with dominant ideologies. Singapore government can start pro-nationalist policies in order to entice the individuals to get married and have a child. Limitations of the study can be the time constant as I hardly have time to put in order to carry out such vast topic. Another limitation can be budgetary constant as I do not have enough budget to carry out such topic. In this scenario, I have to manage two types of data collection and I have to analyse both types of data with reliability and validity. Handling a large amount of data will be another issue for me. Moreover, I am going to choose only 150 sample for the quantitative research, this sample is quite small. If I would have enough time, I could have chosen large sampling. That would help me to have an exact result for this topic. Reference List Cheung, P. P. (2010). 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(2014). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 7th Edition. Pearson Education Limited: UK. Neuman, W.L. and Robson, K., (2014).Basics of social research. Vancouver: Pearson Canada. Palinkas, L.A., Horwitz, S.M., Green, C.A., Wisdom, J.P., Duan, N. Hoagwood, K., (2015). Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed method implementation research.Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research,42(5), 533-544. Panneerselvam, R., (2014).Research methodology. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.. Silverman, D. ed., (2016).Qualitative research. London: Sage. Smith, J.A. ed., (2015).Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. London: Sage. Straughan, P. T. (2013). Delayed Marriage and Ultra Low Fertility in Singapore-The Confounding Challenges to Social Stability.CSC-IPS The Population Conundrum-Roundtable on Singapores Demographic Challenges,3, 1-20 Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. 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