A new survey has popped up in my inbox and it claims to be Malaysia's first children career survey. It has been done five times in Singapore and twice in Thailand.
The survey asks five simple questions like what do you want to be when you grow up and what is more important: to make lots of money or spend time with your family?
Now this is intriguing. Swiss human resource firm Adecco said it gives "insight into what the Malaysian workforce of tomorrow thinks about the world that they live in and what they aspire to do and become in the future".
About a fifth of Malaysian kids, aged 7-14, that were surveyed wants to be doctors, followed by pilot and police officer. This has also been the top choice in Thailand for two years running and it is among the top five in Singapore.
Interestingly, Singaporean kids' top job pick is to be a soccer player, according to Adecco's latest survey. That actually makes a lot of sense to me, because successful players in the English Premier League get paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a week.
But after studying the survey results between Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, there was one thing that worried me. Only 75 per cent of kids surveyed in Malaysia think it's better to spend more time with the family than to make more money. The number is over 90 per cent in Singapore and Thailand.
The main question would be why is our number lower? The results mean that in Malaysia, roughly every one in four kids between 7 and 14 think it's better to work than to spend time with the family. Something is not quite right here.
One reason could be that Malaysian parents have to work harder to make ends meet. This means the father and mother work, leaving little quality family time. Now why would the average Malaysian husband and wife spend more time at work to make more money?
The answer to that could be the rise in prices. For example, monthly food charges at a boarding school more than 20 years ago were about RM30. It has since tripled.
Another possible explanation is that our wages have not grown much faster than the prices of goods and services over the years. According to a survey by Towers Watson, another HR firm, average salaries grew by 5 per cent in 2010. Companies expect another 5-6 per cent salary increase in 2011.
But it rightly pointed out that this is not enough. If Malaysia wants to double its gross national income over the next 10 years, salaries must rise by an average of 7.2 per cent a year. Read more: Insights from a kids' survey http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/wknotekids/Article/index_html#ixzz1BifabwGY.
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