17 - Epilogue

Summary

This concluding chapter has been designed to provide a brief discussion of the population policy changes that were introduced after the manuscript was completed and submitted for publication. The inclusion of the latest changes will render the book more up-to-date when it is finally made available to prospective readers. Most of the changes were announced in the budget statement delivered by the Minister for Finance in Parliament in April 2016. The policy changes deal mainly with the strengthening of existing pronatalist measures, and only a few completely new measures were presented.

It was announced that the paternity leave, first implemented in 2013, would be enhanced by giving a second week of compulsory paternity leave paid for by the government. Currently, only one week of paid paternity leave is compulsory, though employers may offer a second week on a voluntary basis. Under the new scheme, the government is required to to pay for the second week of compulsory leave, capped at $2,500 per week, plus CPF contributions. This is meant to ease the financial burden of employers. Furthermore, employers will be given sufficient time to make all the necessary adjustments, particularly the work schedule of their workforce, as the new measure will only be provided to fathers with babies born from 1 January 2017.

An additional perk for the fathers is that they will be permitted to share up to four weeks, instead of the present one week, of their wives' sixteen weeks of paid maternity leave with effect from 1 June 2016. Combined with one week of childcare leave and one week of infant care leave, fathers will be able to receive a total of eight weeks off work within one year of the birth of the child. This, coupled with the longer paternity leave, will allow fathers to play a bigger role in parenting and to help the parents to achieve a much better work-family balance in their home when both parents are working.

Another policy change concerns the amount of maternity leave accorded to unwed mothers. It was announced that from early 2017, unwed mothers will be able to receive the same sixteen-week paid maternity leave as that given to married mothers.