By: Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports
11 OCTOBER 2008, 2.00 PM AT CONRAD CENTENNIAL
Mr Eddie Koh, General Manager, Friesland (Singapore)
Distinguished Speakers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to join you this afternoon at this Mothers Balance-It-All Forum.
I congratulate the Working Mothers Forum for organising today's event. This is an excellent platform for working mothers to learn, network and provide mutual support in harmonising motherhood and career.
Socio-economic Development of Women
As in other developed countries, women in Singapore have made great strides in our socio-economic development. Women now make up half of our tertiary student population. The female labour force participation rate has also risen from 50% in 1996 to 54% in 2007. With greater exposure to education and training, it is natural that women nowadays want to fulfill their aspirations at home and at work. With a small labour force, our economy also needs the contribution of women in the workplace.
But this positive development has brought about challenges to the family institution. The traditional gender roles, where the husband works and the woman looks after the family, are no longer the norm. Many Singaporean women want to work and have children. The Marriage and Parenthood Study, commissioned by MCYS in 2007, showed that over 60% of married females preferred to be working mothers. The proportion of dual-career families also saw an increase from about 40% in 1990 to 44 in 2005. With such trends, our society will need to help women realise their economic and family aspirations.
This requires efforts in 3 areas ? in the overall environment, especially the workplace; at home; and at the individual level.
Creating a Supportive Environment
For the first, we need to create an overall family-friendly environment that accepts and supports the dual roles of working women. Recognising this, the Government has recently announced enhanced parenthood measures that will be helpful to working parents. Broad-based support will be provided to couples in both financial and non-financial areas. Working mothers in particular are able to enjoy many measures to help them manage work and family responsibilities. These include enhanced leave schemes, greater financial support, as well as quality, affordable and accessible centre-based childcare options. The budget for the enhanced Marriage and Parenthood (M&P) package is $1.6 billion, which is double that of the old M&P package. I strongly encourage you to make use of the schemes to realise your family aspirations and achieve work-life harmony.
Promoting Work-Life Harmony at the Workplace
A critical factor in creating a conducive environment is the employer. Employers play a significant role in enabling working women to make use of the various benefits to help them balance work and family demands. At the same time, they could also provide more flexible arrangements for employees. Well-balanced and happy individuals will be more engaged and productive at work.
However, when it comes to work-life promotion at the workplace, Singapore has some way to go. The proportion of females on part-time employment is 9.4%, which is lower than the 17.8% for United States, and 19% for Sweden. And yet, according to the 2007 Marriage and Parenthood Study, about 85% of all respondents agreed or strongly agreed that part-time/flexible work arrangements would be the best way for a mother to reconcile family and work. Hence, it is important that more effort be put in to provide part-time and other flexible work arrangements for working parents.
At the national level, the Tripartite Committee on Work-Life Strategy, comprising employers, unions and the Government, spearheads the promotion of work-life harmony in Singapore. The committee has been working closely with the Employer Alliance to promote a work-life culture at the workplace and get employers to adopt work-life strategies. I am indeed heartened to note that an increasing number of companies is embracing work-life harmony, not as something nice to have, but as an important business strategy.
I urge more employers, including the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to adopt Work-Life strategies, especially part-time/flexible work arrangements. For those who are keen but do not know where to start, they can refer to the Employer Alliance's tool book called ''Integration and Achieving Work-Life''. It offers a map with clearly marked milestones to guide employers through the implementation of their work-life solutions. They have also launched the ''First Mover Initiative'' recently to help SMEs identify their work-life needs and implement work-life programmes, including flexible work arrangements.
Companies can tap on the Flexi-Works! programme, a new initiative by the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) for companies to hire new workers on part-time or flexible work arrangements. They can also tap on the Work-life Works! or WoW! Fund to implement work-life measures. I am pleased to note that the WOW! Fund, which was launched over four years ago in August 2004 has benefited over 450 employers. Over 90% of them are SMEs who employ less than 200 staff.
Enhancing the Participation and Role of Fathers at Home
Besides the workplace, it is important that women receive support at home as well. The 2008 Working Mothers Forum Survey revealed that the top wish of many working mums was for their husbands to play a more hands-on role in parenting. Husbands and wives should share domestic responsibilities based on what each does better.
Two of the leave schemes announced recently - childcare and infant care can be taken by working fathers. This will enable fathers to share the joy and the responsibility of parenting.
In this regard, I am heartened to note that the fathering movement is gaining strength in Singapore. We have people-sector organisations such as the Centre for Fathering (CFF) and the Association of Devoted and Active Family Men (ADAM) promoting active fathering and equip fathers with the skills to do so. I would certainly like to see more family related organisations and more fathers to come forward to join in this movement.
The family is the first line of support. Apart from their husbands, women can also get help from the parents, parents-in-law and other relatives. They can be called upon to help whenever in an emergency or on occasions when you need them to keep an eye on your children.
Individual Work-Life Harmony
Finally, the individuals ? you and I ? also play a crucial role. For those who have to work and care for the family, we know that it is not easy. And we should not expect it to be easy. At our workplaces, we should appreciate the difficulties employers face and the kindness of our colleagues who have to cover our duties from time to time. On our part as individuals, we should learn to maximise our productivity at work. Where we have the benefits of a flexi-work environment, we should not assume that flexible work mean ''less work''. It means ''smart work''. It is about time management, and working efficiently. On the home front, we should also appreciate those who help us out, be they our husband, relatives or even our domestic help.
The way to go about achieving work-life harmony varies from one individual to another, based on their own priorities and work-life styles. Ellen Kossek and Brenda Lautsch, co-authors of the book ''CEO of Me'' identified three work-life approaches - Integrating, Separating and Volleying. Integrators blend work and personal life in terms of time and space. Separators segment work from personal life psychologically and physically. Volleyers can switch back and forth between segmentation and blending of work and life.
Identifying what should our work-life approach be will allow us to assess how well our priorities and values gel with our way of working and living. My Ministry supports Personal Work-life Effectiveness programmes to equip individuals with the skills to make informed decisions on their work, personal and family life. At the end of the day, we must remember that we are the CEO of our own life. We have control over our own work-life effectiveness.
Conclusion
It is certainly not easy for women to harmonise multiple responsibilities at home and at work. But there is hope, if we adopt a total approach encompassing policies, services and changing mindsets of employers and husbands, to empower women to fulfill multiple roles. To this end, the Government will continue to work with the public, private and people sectors to help shape an environment in which working mothers can fulfill their aspirations in their work and their family life.
On this note, I wish all of you a fruitful time of learning and sharing. Thank you.
MCYS SPEECH NO: 56/2008
DATE OF ISSUE: 11/10/2008