FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORK PRACTICES (Motion)

1.59 pm

Mr Speaker: This motion is subject to signification of support by at least one Member. Does the motion have the support of any Member?

Some hon. Members raised their hands.

Mr Speaker: Dr Vasoo, Mr Chay, Dr Jennifer Lee, Mr Ahmad Magad, Dr Aline Wong and several other Members. Yes, Dr Neo, you can move your motion.

Dr Lily Neo (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move,

That this House, recognising the need to maintain a balance between the demands of work and family responsibility, urges the Government to promote (a) family-friendly and pro-family work practices and facilities and (b) policies and programmes that support and strengthen the family.

Sir, the issue of maintaining a balance between work and family is especially important and relevant to us at this very juncture of our nation's development. Harmonizing family and work is the key to happier families, to promote stable homes and thereby a stronger nation.

The need to balance between work and family has become an issue that concerns everybody and involves equally both the fathers and the mothers of our families. It is no more just the concern of fathers alone who used to be the main providers of families. Singaporean women do contribute substantially to our economy considering that the share of females in the labour force was 42% last year. Now more than ever, Sir, women are required to be in partnership with men to bring our economy to new heights. This partnership should embrace a wider field of various areas like parenting, household chores, economic contributions, and so on.

Maintaining a balance between work and family is also a crucial factor in our efforts to increase the "total fertility rate" (TFR) which currently stands, Sir, at a dismal 1.5 for Singapore. At present, many people lament on the lack of time for bigger family due to the need for both parents to work. Therefore, harmonizing work and family will certainly help address our declining birth rates. There are, of course, other contributory factors, such as the expectations of parents and their ability to better juggle and manage their time.

It is interesting to note that in Italy and Spain, where traditional gender expectations are similar to Singapore, the fertility rates were 1.2 and 1.4 respectively. In these southern countries of Europe, most childcare is still arranged privately (grandmothers take care of children while parents are at work and fathers do not look after children at all). There is this common expectation that parenting and household chores are the responsibility of the women. Sir, this is also the kind of stereotyped mindset that has been impinged on us for decades and is a major stumbling block, apart from other factors, for our present predicament. It is necessary for the socio-cultural attitude in Singapore to change with regard to gender acceptance. Men have to reconsider the role they must assume in the Singaporean households. Are they contributing to lighten the load of motherhood? Are fathers still clinging on to the cultures that foster the image of being not manly to do "women's work"? Are they having the "hands-off attitude" with regard to child-rearing and household chores? Sir, these old mindsets must go so that our womenfolk would become more willing to have more children knowing that they can have the support of their husbands.

Set up comprehensive formulation and implementation of policies including positive actions

In some of the northern European countries, government handouts and support have helped ease the burden of raising children. Denmark has a "total fertility rate" of 1.7, which is relatively higher compared to, say, Italy with a TFR of 1.2. Sir, the level of childcare facilities and parental benefits seems to make a significant difference. Most countries on the southern rim of Europe, such as Italy and Spain, have some of the lowest TFR on the continent. The governments there provide much less child-related allowances than the Nordic countries. These northern countries have some of the highest fertility rates in Europe and this despite the fact that the proportion of women in their labour force is also among the highest. Childcare services are widely available and are subsidised up to 85% in some cases. In addition, the labour markets in the northern European countries are a lot more flexible than in the rest of the region. Part-time jobs, flexible working hours and tele-working are not uncommon. Financial support, in the form of birth and child allowances, is provided and, in certain cases, up to the time the child reaches adulthood. It would appear that the higher TFR resulted from a more conducive environment for adults to have children without giving up or losing their jobs. Labour force incentives are more important than monetary incentives in their case.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the announcement by Prime Minister Goh on baby bonuses, maternity leave for third child and setting up of a Ministerial Committee to study declining fertility is a good and welcome start.

However, the incentives in monetary terms may make a bigger difference to those in the lower income families and not the better-off families who will look beyond the money incentives and look at childcare options, "stressful" education, career attainment and burden-free lifestyles. Additionally, administrative and workplace measures are the main concerns of many higher-income earners. Incentives on getting employers to provide practices that help workers harmonise work and family will be useful. Incentives that encourage companies to follow pro-family policies for their workers, especially for those with young families should be offered. Perhaps, for a start, we may look at the following:

1. There must be a change in the mindset of those employers who prefer employees with no family commitments in terms of hiring and job promotion, and so on. Some incentives and campaigns are certainly needed, indeed, in this area.

2. Incentives for big companies to set up their own childcare centres will ease many parents with the convenience of having their children at or near their workplace. This will benefit the working parents as they can conveniently deposit and pick up their children as well as visit them during tea breaks or at lunch time.

3. Our Government should consider providing free medical treatment for our pre-school children. The Singapore Government spends only about 1.1% of GDP on healthcare. This, Sir, is one of the lowest in a developed country where the usual average is about 5% to 7%. The healthcare burden on the people is high in Singapore. The public healthcare expenditure is 1.1% of GDP and the private healthcare expenditure is 2% of GDP or twice the amount spent by the Government. This contrasts significantly with that in England where the private share is only one sixth, in Australia where the private share is only half, and in Hong Kong and Malaysia where the ratio is roughly one to one. I feel it is, hence, reasonable to urge our Government to increase the spending on public healthcare for all Singaporean children.

4. Housing is an important consideration to most people. The incentive given to help a young couple own a flat is welcome indeed. More help should be given to those couples who prefer to rent flats instead, for a variety of reasons. In my meet-the-people sessions, I have, many a time, found it necessary to sympathise with some constituents who needed rental flats badly due to overcrowding. Often, they were sharing two-room or three-room flats with other members of their families. Worse still, some had their own babies coming on the way.

Promote family-friendly work environment

Sir, the United States has never tried shaping the birth rate or pushing any population policy, yet its fertility rate of 2.1 is the highest for the industrialised countries. Whilst immigration is an important contributory factor, a major difference is made by the US workforce that is more family-friendly now and is a source of support for working parents with children. The US has accommodated the need for two-earner families better than many European countries in various ways. Companies offer wide-ranging creative services from childcare to shoe repair, from paternity leave to a cafeteria that prepares take-home meals. The "Working Mother" magazine releases an annual ranking of the top 100 companies for working mums, and companies like to highlight that inclusion in this special list.

Sir, a company's bottom-line need not be affected just because money is spent on family-friendly practices. After all, its money-making ability depends, to a large extent, on the well-being of its staff. The personal life of its employees can have a major impact on a company's performance. Employers who give their employees flexibility in balancing their work and personal lives will actually see an increase in profits. I read in the Straits Times that the First Tennessee Bank in the United States which had taken the family-friendly route, saw a 7% increase in customer retention and a US$106 million increase in profits, two years after doing so. Employees who have work-family conflicts are three times more likely to think about quitting their jobs. In contrast, employees who have supportive workplace have greater job satisfaction and are more willing to put in extra effort to help the company succeed. Sir, the Government, being the largest employer in Singapore, should be championing a family-friendly civil service and must take the lead in this area.

Facilitate women to participate in the workforce through flexible work arrangements like part-time work, flexi-time work, tele-work, and so on

Flexibility in work arrangements must become more accepted by companies. The concept must be such that an employee may work non-normal hours so long as productivity is not compromised despite the unusual arrangements. I am glad that some of our Government Ministries have just started a pilot scheme of having extended public service hours that will result in staff having Saturdays off on a rotational basis. I hope this scheme will be extended to all public services in the near future.

Thus, Mr Speaker, Sir, rotation between the staff to work certain time slots is possible and can enhance quality of life. With such flexi-time work, parents may then opt for certain "off-duty" time slots to coincide with their children's extra curricular activities, and so on. The opportunity for such interaction and contact with children is important; the prospect of more leisure time is an adjunct of a developed economy.

Tele-working is well suited to women with young children. More such jobs should be made available to them. Employers must trust that work can also be done without staff at their seats within certain set hours.

Part-time workers should be reimbursed on their CPF and medical benefits as for full-time workers. Also, many part-time workers do not get the same career advancement as for full-time workers. Contract workers, likewise, should have their lot enhanced. They should be provided adequate "safety net" benefits. Perhaps, the Government would look into these issues.

Sir, as Singapore is a fast ageing society with a decreasing working to non-working ratio, the need for flexibility in work arrangement is destined to stay. The trend, in the not too distant future, will be for more people to require time off to look after their aged parents. Thus, pro-family policies at work should encompass the employee's responsibility towards their aged parents as well.

Improve our childcare facilities

Mr Speaker, Sir, Singapore is still short of childcare centres. MCDS is planning to increase the number of childcare centres by 25% to 58,000 within three years from the present 46,000 places. We should use this opportunity to better plan the childcare centres. And, besides numbers, better childcare centres should be provided for certified professionals and dedicated staff will give peace of mind to parents who now want professional care for their children. Enhancement of childcare facilities, such as more precinct-based childcare centres, developing "borrow-a-granny" and "share-a-maid" schemes, and so on, should be further facilitated.

We should have the childcare centres evenly distributed throughout the island. In the newer HDB estates, where there are more young children, there is a need for such centres more urgently and in larger numbers. Cooperation between the Government, VWOs and private organisations is necessary to establish and allocate childcare centres. The aim should be to have the centres conveniently located in relation to either the home or the workplace. This, in effect, calls for employers to consider providing childcare centres at the workplace. In this respect, Sir, I would like to suggest that our Government help private organisations in terms of grants towards this cause. Realising that land cost will be a major burden for most operators, it may be worth looking at ways to alleviate this to ensure these centres remain affordable. Childcare centres should be provided for private dwellers as well. There are many young families buying and moving into new condominiums in areas with no childcare centres nearby.

The number of childcare centres that cater to children below 18 months of age should be increased, as there is a dire shortage of them. At the moment, there are only three such centres catering to a mere 44 babies, against 40,000 annual births. I understand that it is difficult to run such centres and that this could be due to difficulties in hiring suitable care-givers, including nurses, greater responsibility with children that are young, intensive labour force in terms of carer-to-children ratio, and susceptibility of young children to sickness. MCDS should look to solve some of these difficulties and facilitate private organisations to run such centres more willingly. For a start, the enlistment of retired elderly to care for children may work.

The Government should allow the agencies to provide part-time maids to fill certain situations. There are families who cannot afford to have full-time maids, but will benefit from several hours of help per week from part-time foreign domestic maids. Also ad-hoc child-minders, as and when circumstances arise, will be useful, for example, to mind children who are ill and cannot attend childcare centres and whose parents cannot take emergency leave and so on. Sir, the recent shutdown of childcare centres due to the hand, foot and mouth disease is a good example where this scheme would have served very well. This would be especially so for those parents who did not have relatives and friends who could mind their children for about 10 days. The inconvenience and economic loss would have been substantial as it involves about 140,000 children in 557 childcare centres and 440 kindergartens, if a majority of the parents cannot go to work.

Enhance Family Ties and Obligations

There is a need to inspire the young with a deeper sense of individual responsibility towards the family. Basic social etiquette and interpersonal skills should be taught and promoted. This will lead to our young being better equipped with skills in handling boy-girl relationship, marriage and parental responsibility, and so on. Such "values" transmission can be done through teachers in schools, through some sort of parent-school-community partnership, through religious and community groups, and through the media. The Ministry of Education and Ministry of Community Development and Sports should look at these issues and be facilitative in this area.

Traditionally, the father had been the sole breadwinner and the distant disciplinarian while mother was the nurturer and homemaker. In the present dual-income family, there should be a shift towards this perception of the roles of fathers and mothers. Parenting and homemaker tasks should be shared between spouses. The joy of bringing up children should be shared and experienced by both parents. Women whose husbands do not help out with childrearing and domestic chores are more stressed out. Research into marital satisfaction among Singaporean women showed a direct correlation between stress levels in women and the amount of help they get at home. Sir, many Singapore men want to be better fathers and husbands, but face constraints due to pressure at work and the lack of time. Therefore, it is timely to look towards a family-orientated society, with priority given to family needs. I am glad that our Government has recognised the partnership of child-bearing and homemaking by granting paternity leave. More effort should be spent in this area, such as further incentives and campaign to change the stereotyped mindset of many men regarding parenting and household responsibility. The Government should take the lead in changing the mindset of fathers and encouraging them to be equal partners in raising families.

Strengthening family ties, better bonding with extended families and neighbourliness are areas worth cultivating. Community-based organisations should organise more activities in grassroots programmes to promote these virtues. Our CCC, CCMC, CDC and Town Councils can be active partners too. As the trend is for Singapore families to get smaller, extended families will not be the norm soon. And since they are all working, many will become too busy for interaction with families and friends. Such a trend, Sir, is bad and must be addressed. It is disturbing to know that quite a number of couples did not have anybody to fall back on to mind their children when childcare centres and kindergartens were closed during the recent hand, foot and mouth disease epidemic.

Address the Stress of Education

The study by Dr Stella Quah of the National University of Singapore, on the Singapore Family, revealed that the greatest worry for about 45% of them came from the problems associated with their children's education. Singaporean parents have also frequently mentioned children's education as the contributory factor in opting for smaller families.

Sir, I doubt many will fault our education system in terms of first-rate facilities, in terms of fantastic academic results, and even in terms of free and fair opportunities for all our children. The Government and educators spare no effort in trying to let our young have the best. We should all be glad. But we moan and we are disgruntled and dissatisfied. And we tell the world and allow the world to tell us how stressed we are from the education of our children.

I contend, Sir, that some of the problems may have to do with our mindset on "success" and "competition for success". The "comparing" nature is something that has been encouraged in all of us because we have been trained to strive to be better than others, and there is no clear level when enough is enough. We are a success-orientated nation. It is only natural for parents to want success and the best for their children. Having the drive for success and for betterment is not a bad thing at all. But when such urge becomes excessive and begins to look like a survival prerequisite, then it is not good. Parents should be supportive and encourage their children in their education, and they should not push their children to beyond limits of the children's capabilities. This will cause unnecessary "stress" to themselves and their children. Mr Speaker, Sir, not all our children can go to university but the support should be to maximise each child's potential, whatever it may be. Success may not necessarily come from highest education alone. Note that our homegrown and remarkably successful businessman, Mr Sim Wong Hoo, graduated from the polytechnic and not the university. We do have to try to convince Singaporeans that success does not come from highest education alone. The Government must also show the example by not selecting and promoting people in the civil service with highest academic qualifications alone but also with other and different criteria.

In 1998, 2,358 new cases of children aged below 18 were registered at Government psychiatric clinics. In almost 95% of the cases, the children were not mad; they were just stressed out. Half of these cases were children from primary schools, 35% from secondary schools and 15% were pre-schoolers. Stress at school was mentioned as one of the reasons for becoming depressed. My view is for teachers not to overload pupils unnecessarily with homework and tests. Syllabus needs to be revamped to make it less demanding so that the teacher can complete it and the students can understand what has been taught. For the above-average students, there is always the option for them to be given more challenging "add-ons".

Is our school system so inadequate, Sir, that many parents turn to private tuition for their children? Many from the lower-income group cannot afford this and often feel pressured for being unable to give their children the "best" through private tuition. Personal coaching is often impossible because they hold full-time jobs. Moreover, much of the syllabus is beyond them anyway; this would be even more so for the lesser-educated parents. It will be a good idea if our schools can provide the same sort of tutorial classes after normal school hours, not for giving the children extra work but for helping them cope with their "homework".

Insofar as helping parents with school-going kids balance work and family commitments, we may perhaps try matching work hours with school hours. Sir, since we are tending towards single-session schools, we can have the children stay back in the school to do their "homework" or have "remedials" while their parents are still at work. Another way to help parents, especially working parents, is to organise the extra-curricular pursuits, like learning drama, piano, ballet and so on, collectively in the schools after classes. This will save parents having to ferry their children to and from different places for these hobbies. I can see such a system helping Singaporean parents save much time, effort and money. Let us make our schools more holistic and comprehensive in nature.

Whilst on the issue of schooling hours, I submit that the starting times are far too early at the moment. This is especially so if a child is not in a neighbourhood school, because the average journey from home can easily take 45 minutes. It is a common sight to see many school children at bus interchanges all over the island at around 6.20 in the morning. These children and their parents have to get up very early indeed. Many of them have less than the eight hours of sleep that is needed, especially for children. With the need to revise their schoolwork, do homework and projects, participate in ECAs, go for tuition, and so on, there is indeed a lot for the children to cope with in a day. On top of this, the parents have to rush to work, bring kids to the childcare centres or grandparents, etc, all within that same time-frame. Pre-school children or babies may have to be woken up, sometimes in the wee hours, to fit around their older siblings' schedules. Sir, we should aim for schooling hours to start at 8.30 in the morning. Most schools in the Western world start anytime from 8.30 to 9.00 in the morning.

There has been too much emphasis on academic achievement and examination-based orientation in our school system. There is this concern that children are only "exam-smart" and, rather than a really well-rounded education, a lot of emphasis is given towards passing examinations and scoring A's. This will not hold well in the new economy. A well-rounded child may not be exam-smart, scoring straight A's and all, but may be able to think creatively and have a higher EQ. The Government has recognised that creativity is important and the old way of rote learning is out. But can we really grade critical and creative thinking? And, Sir, how do we transit into the new way? Are there existing policies that impede this transition?

The criteria for the ranking of schools may have to be expanded to lessen the emphasis on academic achievements and grade scores. More weightage should be on other markers relevant to the present times; thus, ranking should take attainments in developing the potentials of students in information technology, sports and the arts into consideration. This will ease a lot of the pressures on students, parents and teachers.

Many parents have expressed their concerns on streaming of children at Primary 4. They still perceive that EM1 students will have better peers and teachers, when, in fact, it may not be the case since the difference lies only in the mother tongue sessions that the students attend. Now that the requirements for mother tongue have been relaxed for university entry, parents should be reassured on the nature of streaming at Primary 4. It is unfortunate that, in any year, there is also some sort of banding of the students involved in Primary 4. However, banding students has been in practice for decades and is something parents have accepted. It would be worthwhile for the Ministry of Education and schools to put in more effort to better inform the parents on this issue to alleviate the stress associated with this.

Having flexibility in varsity-entry criteria will ease the stress from many students and parents. Parents can then be at ease to allow their children to develop their own unique potential though it may not conform to the norm. Universities should not be too fixated on accepting students with a string of straight A's. Recently, a visiting molecular geneticist, Professor Tsui Lap Chee, said that he himself did not qualify for the university. He did brilliantly in biology, but merely passed his other subjects. Fortunately, the Department of Biology's head at the Chinese University of Hong Kong was so impressed with his biology grades that he persuaded the University to make an exception in his case. If the University had not bent the rules, he would not be where he is today - a world-renowned pioneer.

Enhance fertility, childbearing and family bonding

There is a general tendency for the younger people in our workforce to put off courtship, marriage and childbearing to very much later in their lives. Often times, the reasons for this trend has to do with the ability to balance work commitments with other aspirations in life. There are unfortunate consequences when the pressure to succeed first at work leads to late marriage and childbearing. Hence, in our efforts to address the balance between work and family commitments, we have to look at alleviating some of the problems facing us concerning procreation.

Sir, the following are some aspects worth our consideration.

Help the subfertile

The chances that a fertile couple would need more than a year to produce a child doubles from 8% when the man was 25 years old to 15% when he was over 35. If our men do not make an effort to date, to get married, to go back early to spend time with their wives and their children, how do we achieve our ideal families? The prevalence of infertility in Singapore is about 10% of married couples, of which the men constitute about 30% to 40% of the contributory factor. The female is responsible for about 40% to 50%. The remaining 10% to 30% may be idiopathic or caused by contributing factors in both partners. Therefore, let us address this sad issue at both genders from the outset. These 10% of married couples often have to endure tremendous physical, emotional and financial hardships. Sir, I feel that these couples should be helped as fertility medical treatment can be time-consuming and very expensive. The Medisave withdrawal limit for the most costly procedure, intro-vitro fertilisation (IVF), should be reviewed. The current withdrawal limit of $2,000 per treatment cycle up to a maximum of three cycles per patient for a procedure costing near $10,000 per treatment cycle is far too low. Our adoption procedure should be made less onerous to enable couples to adopt children. There are many cases where, despite exhaustive treatment, couples may still not be able to conceive. For them, adoption is an option and they should be assisted.

Encourage earlier childbearing

Publicity and promotion of early childbearing age should be done extensively to educate the public on the medical disadvantages of pregnancy in older women. In Singapore, 16.8% of pregnancies involve older women. This figure far exceeds the developed world's average of 8%. Here, an average of 17 out of every 100 women who give birth is above the age of 35. Pregnancy in older women carries increased risks for mums and babes. These include miscarriages, pregnancy complications and complicated deliveries. There is also a higher risk for chromosomal abnormalities, the most common one being Down's syndrome. For women aged 25 and below, the chances are one in 800, but by the age of 40, the rate increases to one in 63.

Enhanced pro-family practices

Enhancing practices that will promote family unity and procreation is necessary. For instance, the option for mothers to have extended unpaid maternity leave, whilst available, is not widely accepted. This common practice in both the public and private sectors in the western countries and in Australia allows for working mothers to extend their maternity leave by up to six months. Mothers get to spend more time with their babies during the post-delivery period, a time which is crucial for mother-baby bonding and is certainly a pro-family ideal.

Expand avenues for courtship and marriage

One in three Singapore adults in their early 30s is still single. And 16.5% of them remain single well into their 40s, compared to just one in 10 in 1990. According to the

2000 Census, 27% of men in their late 30s were unmarried, while 18.5% of women in this age group were single. Unlike single women, many of whom are graduates, two-fifths of the over 77,000 single men above 35 have secondary education or less.

The Social Development Unit (SDU) was set up in 1984 by the People's Association to promote marriage among graduates. Since then, 21,400 SDU members have got married. The Social Development Service (SDS) was set up in 1985 to create opportunities for non-university graduates. Since then, 87,000 SDS members had married. SDU and SDS have done well and should be further supported to expand their roles to achieve higher targets. In today's context of busy schedules and less time to meet and to court, more avenues for people to interact are essential.

One in five single British men and women is turning to dating agencies and personal advertisements to start relationship, confirming a trend researchers have found that modern lifestyle and job demands are killing traditional courtship. Facilitating and providing avenues for young people to come together in the schools, polytechnics, universities and community centres and so on will give them the opportunity to intermingle with peers within their cohorts. This opportunity may not be there once they start their working life. Credible websites run by Government agencies or reputable private organisations that ensure correct and certified data of individuals will be useful. I believe that, in the IT era, this channel will prove to be the preferred choice for many of our IT-savvy and busy young people to acquaint and befriend each other.

The Government, Sir, should spearhead more social-support factors. I am of the opinion that encouraging marriages with financial enticements would not be a good idea. This is in contrast with the case of encouraging couples to have bigger families with financial incentives. Parents and young people should abandon the mindset that students should not court until they have graduated and are established in their careers because by then, it becomes increasingly difficult to meet and to start courting. Young people would be well-advised to be responsible adults who are accountable in relationship, responsible towards each other and sensible in pursuing studies simultaneously with a relationship without jeopardizing one for the other.

To conclude, Sir, no Government can dictate people to get married or to have more children. Our Government, however, can facilitate the people to fulfill their family wishes and one of the best ways to do this is through helping them to harmonise work and family. While the Government can make it more conducive for people to get married and have bigger families, the eventual result rests on the expectations of parents, their ability to juggle and manage time better.

Sir, the crux of the whole issue and the solution lies, ultimately, in the hands of all Singaporeans themselves. They must have the correct attitude towards what they want in life. They must believe that fulfilment in life depends on a balance between their work responsibilities and their family needs rather than a compromise on one for the other. This involves a major change in mindset of Singaporeans and this House needs to urge the Government for a positive move to achieve such a change.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Dr Tan Boon Wan (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, thank you for this opportunity to speak on this topic.

Sir, our children are the future of the nation. They are nurtured in the fold of the family. The family is a pillar of the stability of the nation. There is thus no question of the importance of strong families to the future of Singapore. Many factors make for a happy family. Government policies impinge on the family. I am delighted to note that over the years, the Government has made visible efforts to implement family supportive policies. More can be done and I am confident that more will be done.

Workers from happy families are more productive and I urge all employers to make the effort to make the workplace an environment friendly to the family. As an employer, the Government has been responsive to the needs of the family, introducing family-friendly practices and facilities. Many companies have also put in efforts and funds to do so. They are good examples to follow. I urge the employers to do more and others who have not done so to consider and implement family-friendly practices.

Sir, family members, especially parents, also have a major role in creating a happy family environment. I want to add on to a point that Dr Lily Neo raised in her address - stress caused by the education system. I believe that hard work is necessary for success. Children have worked hard for their success. There is no alternative even for those naturally endowed. We should not ask the Ministry of Education to merely make our education system easier for our student for his own sake. MOE has been reviewing the system to make our system better able to meet the needs of our future in the new economy. MOE has adapted our system to be performance-based, each student to work at his or her own pace and capability. We should espouse instead the philosophy of being the best we can be. Hence, I urge parents not to pressurize their children beyond their capabilities. They should not have unrealistic expectation of them, making unrealistic demand on their capability and performance. Parents should thus encourage their children to do their best. We should allow our children their time, their space so that they can have their childhood.

Sir, if every party plays his, her or its part in promoting the welfare of the family, I am sure the quality of family life for our citizens will improve.

I support the motion.

Dr Jennifer Lee: Sir, I rise to support the motion standing in the name of the Member for Kreta Ayer-Tanglin GRC on family-friendly work practices.

Since the Prime Minister's speech here in this Chamber in October one year ago, on his concern that Singaporeans are not reproducing ourselves, increasing attention has been turned to the subject, once again, of persuading Singaporeans to increase their productivity from the population perspective. Intimately intertwined in the ensuing discussions and debate is the subject of the family, and of the stresses on our current day Singaporean families, which surely impacts on our young couples' decisions on whether to start a family and, in fact, on the size of the family to have.

We have seen considerable activity over this period with the formation of the Working Committee on Marriage and Procreation, involving an impressive panel of Permanent Secretaries, the announcement of a Ministerial Committee to be led by the Minister without Portfolio, Mr Lim Boon Heng, the establishment of a Work-Life Unit by MCDS, and yet another committee on Public Education on the Family, chaired by the Senior Parliamentary Secretary of MCDS. In between, there has been a seminar to discuss the preliminary report of the Committee on the Family, workshops conducted by invited consultants on Work-Life Balance, and the Family Friendly Awards, a tripartite initiative of SNEF, MCDS and NTUC.

All this energy and enthusiasm is certainly a good start, but the concern is that this flurry of activity gets translated into real, substantial and sustained effort, policy reviews and initiatives and programmes for both the immediate and the long term.

The current Government attention on family-friendly and pro-family work practices, policies and programmes to support and strengthen the family is, to a large extent, driven by the baby agenda. But, in fact, these practices, policies and programmes are important for far more than just promoting the production of babies.

Strengthening the family is intrinsically important in itself, especially as we have always held the family to be the basic building block of our society. Even more so in the face of the challenges of the accelerating pace of our modern working environment, coupled with the influences that our youngsters are now open to with the easy accessibility of information.

Strengthening existing families is important, even if all our efforts do not result in one more couple deciding to have one more baby. And, indeed, helping Singaporeans maintain a balance between their work and family responsibilities is an intrinsic and essential factor in achieving the quality of life that we all aspire to as citizens contributing to a first-world economy.

In that same speech last October, the Prime Minister spoke of our twin goals of having both a first-world economy and a world-class home. He observed that the goal of a first-world economy was easier to achieve than that of a world-class home, which involves many intangibles and cannot be measured simply by hardware and physical infrastructure.

It seems to me that we are still holding on tightly to all our old assumptions and measures of success that drive towards economic goals, unwilling to explore shifting the balance even just a little, afraid to let go, lest the easier tangible goal slips from our grasp, as we reach for the harder to achieve intangible one.

Can we get to that happy state in Singapore where we can have a productive, satisfying job that pays reasonably well enough to maintain a decent standard of living and yet, at the same time, look forward to the prospect of a family albeit that it comes with responsibilities, with pleasure rather than trepidation? What does it take? It seems to me it must surely have to be a tripartite effort - involving Government, employers and individuals themselves. All three parties have a role to play.

Let us start with individuals. What is the individual's role? It is certainly essential. Employers and Government can and must support and facilitate through their policies, programmes, services, approach, willingness to be flexible. But the individual must also be prepared, firstly, to make his or her own life choices, for as surely as death and taxes, you can be sure that it is not possible to have it all. You have to decide what is most important to you personally, your priorities, and be aware of the implications of your choice.

At work, in some companies, some family-friendly benefits may be readily available, but many, particularly those involving flexible working arrangements, for example, will often require the employee to also get engaged with his or her supervisor on seeing how to make it work, for both the employee and for the company.

Singaporeans sometimes have a tendency to look to some higher authority, namely, the Government, to solve their problems for them. This is particularly likely in situations where Government has already signalled that the area is one in which it has an interest and a stake in prescribing the outcome. If Singaporeans take this attitude in this instance, it will be a sorry situation indeed, as it will surely make the journey even more arduous and long and the destination less certain.

What is the employers' role? Employers need to do more than just pay perfunctory attention and lip service to seeing how they can become family-friendly. It is however much easier said than done. It involves a lot more than just introducing programmes in an ad hoc manner. To be successfully truly family-friendly involves a systematic approach, from analysing what your own particular profile of employees truly need, through enabling and supporting your managers and supervisors in dealing with the flexible working requests from their subordinates, to achieving all of this while keeping one's cost of operations within reason.

But in truth, in our tight labour market, employers will find, over time, that they will be under pressure to respond to the needs and wants of a changing and more demanding workforce. So, why not be proactive about it and, in fact, adopt family-friendliness as a competitive advantage in recruitment, motivation and retention of good people?

What is Government's role? Obviously, it is more than to exhort companies to be family-friendly and to exhort individuals - well, Government sends these messages to individuals that convey tremendous expectations. To be the best workers in the world, to continuously upgrade their skills and expertise, to engage in life-long learning, not to neglect their children, and to provide care for their parents, as filial sons and daughters, right up to the end of their increasing longer lifespans. And to do so, if at all possible, without foreign domestic help!

The efforts, to date, to grapple with the many issues that need to be addressed, have been driven largely by MCDS, but many more Ministries must be engaged. Otherwise, we will never get anywhere, because there is no simple magic bullet that is the solution, but many, many different things - policies, programmes, services that impact daily on all our lives.

For example, to help companies become more family-friendly, Government's assistance in defraying the cost of job redesign to facilitate flexible working arrangements would be most helpful. It has been suggested that companies could apply for such support under the PSB's Work Redesign Assistance Programmes. For this to work, however, the criteria for support will need to be modified from the relevant programmes as they currently are. I do not believe any progress has been made in this, possibly because it may not even be registered onto PSB's list of things to do, or possibly because PSB's priorities are set by MTI and not by MCDS.

Another example, which I had previously raised with MND for consideration unsuccessfully, is to require developers of commercial and industrial complexes above a certain size to put aside space for child or dependant care centres, and to exempt this space from the calculation of plot ratios, so that near-site childcare centres could be available to the workers and companies located in these complexes. The Minister, in his answer, had said that Government did not wish to compel developers to do this. It would leave it to the companies themselves. Well, we all know, when this Government believes that something needs to be done, it has never before had any compunction about acting on its beliefs. In this instance, I would say, okay, do not compel them, but allow the exemption from plot ratio calculations for such centres. And I dare say some may indeed take up the opportunity to plan accordingly, because I do believe that this may, in fact, be a selling feature of the development. But for this to happen, the exemption must come first.

In any case, here is another Ministry - MND - that could and should be applying its thoughts on how to contribute to this effort to promote pro-family or family-friendly facilities.

It seems to me that possibly the conviction is not quite there in this effort. And possibly the conviction is not quite there because we are still, all this time, just scratching at the surface, looking for the easy quick fixes, ambivalent about what is truly important to us, and avoiding some real soul searching, including relooking at the sacred cows comfortably ensconced on the altar of the first-world economy.

How do we prioritise between being the best workers in the world and putting much more attention to strengthening our families? Do we truly believe mothers should be out contributing to the economy or at home rearing the kids? Do we have a choice? Do they have a choice? We hesitate and that is why up to now, we are still ambivalent about actively promoting the setting up of creches for babies below two years of age. If we cannot afford to have working mums drop out and stay at home, how much role sharing are we truly going to promote without worrying that it will undermine our tenet of a patriarchal Singapore?

We are inordinately driven by elitism. Can we not ease up at all without losing the drive to compete economically? You are nothing if you are not in that cream at the top, not a scholar, not in one of the top professions. This is what drives parents and students, regardless of whatever other messages the Ministry of Education may issue about there being no need to be immoderate in pressuring their children.

It is a rare Singapore family that does not struggle with the stresses of putting the kids through our education system. Add to that MOE's steadfast refusal to entertain that there might be any other way or perspective to explore in such issues as ranking and streaming, and how much progress can we hope to make in addressing stress for families.

The Working Committee on Marriage and Procreation published some recommendations at the end of August. Two recommendations for the civil service - three days of paternity leave and flexibility in organising work hours around a 42-hour week. One on building more hostels to facilitate the blooming of romance in our university campuses, and one on helping newly married couples with their HDB downpayments.

Mr Eddie Teo, who heads the Committee, in explaining the rationale for some of the recommendations, voiced the consideration that we should not, and I quote, "send the wrong signal that Singapore has arrived, and it is okay for workers to switch to a less intense pace." I sincerely hope the Committee does not consider its work done, that it has many more recommendations to make to the Ministerial Committee and that when it does make these recommendations, they will not simply provide small symptomatic concessions but be bold and sweeping and get down to challenging our assumptions on where the balance must be struck between purely economic imperatives and the building of a world class home.

Sir, I support the motion.

Mr Speaker: Order. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 3.20 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 3.02 pm until 3.20 pm. Sitting resumed at 3.20 pm