CHILDREN DEVELOPMENT CO-SAVINGS (AMENDMENT) BILL

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CHILDREN DEVELOPMENT CO-SAVINGS (AMENDMENT) BILL: Order for Second Reading read.

The Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (Dr Vivian Balakrishnan): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr S Iswaran) in the Chair]

6.26 pm

Sir, despite the introduction of various measures over the years, our total fertility rate (TFR) has dropped to an all-time low

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of 1.25 in 2003. To fully replace our population, we need a TFR of 2.1. Singapore is not alone in having a low and declining birth rate. Many developed countries also face the same challenge, and the irony is that Singaporeans actually do want to have more children. When polled, most saw a 3-child family as ideal, but many thought that they could only manage two. In fact, more couples are having only one or, in some cases, none at all.

Singaporeans have cited several factors for this, and this includes concerns over finances, the lack of time, lack of energy, limited options for the care of the child and sub-optimal worklife balance.

Our previous measures such as the extension of eight weeks of paid maternity leave for the third child and the baby bonus for the second and third child sought to address some of these concerns. But the recently unveiled parenthood package addresses the need of Singaporean families even more holistically. Of these measures, I shall only touch on the baby bonus and maternity leave.

Sir, at present, the bonus is given to the second and third child. The baby bonus will now be extended to the first and fourth child. The first child will be eligible for a cash gift of $3,000. The second child will remain eligible for a cash gift of $3,000 as well as a matching Government contribution of up to $6,000 in the child's development account. The third and fourth child will both be eligible for a cash gift of $6,000 as well as a matching Government contribution of up to $12,000 in the child's development account. The upfront cash component will be paid out over two years, instead of the current six years. I wish to inform the House that these changes will be reflected in the Children Development Co-Savings Regulations rather than the Bill itself.

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Let me now turn to maternity leave. The Minister for Manpower has earlier explained the statutory maternity leave provisions to be included in the Employment Act. So I shall only highlight the salient points in this Bill.

The Bill provides for Government reimbursement for the additional weeks of maternity leave for female employees and self-employed women. For the first and second confinements, this will be for the additional four weeks, subject to a cap of $10,000 per confinement. Employers will continue to pay for the first eight weeks. For the third and fourth confinements, Government will pay the full 12 weeks, subject to a cap of $30,000. The additional four weeks of maternity leave can be taken flexibly.

For companies that have a six-day work week, the Government will reimburse up to a cap of 24 days. For others with shorter work week, the Government will reimburse the number of days of leave for an equivalent period of four work weeks. The Manpower Ministry will be responsible for the enforcement of leave provisions and the resolution of disputes between employers and employees under this amendment Bill.

The main purpose of maternity leave is to enable mothers to recover physically from childbirth. Mothers who adopt their child are not entitled to maternity leave as such. However, to affirm our commitment to support families, the Government will reimburse up to four weeks of pay if the adopting mother's employer voluntarily provides her with leave to be with her adopted child. In line with the flexible portion of maternity leave, the Government's reimbursement will only apply if the leave is taken when the adopted child is younger than six months.

Sir, our objective is to ensure that there will be a sufficiently large number of

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Singaporean citizens in succeeding generations to form a viable population core for the country. As such, Members will appreciate that this Bill proposes measures that are targeted specifically at citizen babies.

The Bill proposes reimbursements for maternity leave for up to the fourth child, so as to help alleviate the financial outlays faced by couples who choose to have a fourth child. I should add at this point that this package is not meant as a prescription for the number of children that a family should have. Having a child is an intensely personal decision and the choice, we believe, is best left to the family to make. What we wish to do is to help and to support Singaporeans who want to have more children to have more children. At the end of the day, what we all want is that the next generation of young Singaporeans, not just to grow the economy, but really to build the nation and to be our future.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, like the Employment (Amendment) Bill, the Children Development Co-Savings (Amendment) Bill puts into statute the recommendations of the Procreation Committee which were accepted by the Government.

The Bill primarily seeks to enhance maternity benefits with the Government bearing the cost of the extended four weeks' maternity leave for the first and second child and the entire 12 weeks for the third and fourth child, subject to the maximum stipulated sums. The Government will also reimburse self-employed women for their lost income for the equivalent periods of maternity leave if they stop work for child delivery.

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A new provision is the reimbursement of the pay of female employees or the lost income of self-employed women who are married, widowed or divorced, who adopt children who are less than six months old, at the point of adoption, for a maximum period of 24 days. This is a good initiative and shows that MCYS is sympathetic to the plight of couples who are unable to have children of their own.

As my comments regarding the extended maternity leave for up to four children are similar to those I had made earlier under the Employment (Amendment) Bill, I shall not repeat them here. However, I would like to urge MCYS, together with MOM, to intensify their efforts to convince more firms to adopt family-friendly work practices which are mutually beneficial to employers and employees. According to the Tripartite Committee on Work-Life Strategy, presently only one in five employers allow flexi-work and only 15% offer part-time work. There is obviously a great deal more room for pro-family workplace practices.

The demands of work and the worry that having a baby would hinder one's advancement in career are among the most oft-cited reasons for couples for delaying parenthood or having fewer children. More effort is thus needed to change employers' mindsets and develop family-friendly work practices. Such practices should not discriminate against women and should look at ways to allow for flexi-work hours, working from home and part-time work where the nature of the work can accommodate such arrangements. Employers must also be encouraged to look at performance in terms of outcomes and deliverables and not the hours worked.

Many stay-at-home mothers have expressed their frustration that the baby

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package seems to unwittingly imply that stay-at-home mums are less appreciated, although this is not so since they do benefit from the new baby bonus scheme, for instance. They share that they will prefer to work part-time which will allow them to spend time with their children and at the same time gain some financial independence and self-fulfilment. However, part-time work is scarce as many employers are not amenable to such arrangements. Such mindsets have to be changed if we want to encourage procreation and at the same time help make it easier for women to chart their own course in motherhood.

MCYS could also embark on a drive to encourage more fathers to share in parenting responsibility so that women do not feel that they would have to be the only ones to make the sacrifices and juggle multiple roles if they were to start a family that could impact on their career. Already, there are comments that the slew of measures remain women centric and do not do enough to signal the shared parenting responsibilities.

Other areas that MCYS could consider would be to help train more home-based baby-sitters and to consider extending infant care subsidies to parents who choose home-based baby-sitters as opposed to infant care centres. Some parents may feel more comfortable entrusting their infants to a familiar neighbour or relative than a maid or an infant care centre.

With these suggestions, Sir, I support the Bill.

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong: Sir, I commend the Government for inserting a new section 12A in the Children Development Co-Savings (Amendment) Bill to provide for Government's reimbursement for adoption leave. Adopting a child can be a complicated, time-consuming and emotionally draining

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experience, whether it is a local adoption or a foreign one. Currently, Singaporeans adopt an average of 700 children a year, more than 60% of whom are foreign born. About 5% of the total number of adoptions, or about 35 cases, each year involves singles. They have to meet strict criteria to be eligible to adopt. Each applicant will be investigated thoroughly by MCYS as well as the authorities in the relevant foreign country, if it is an overseas adoption, and they have to apply to the Family Court for the adoption order.

So, under the current Government's guidelines, single females who meet the criteria and the strict checks are allowed to adopt a child. But here comes the contradiction with this Bill. It excludes them in its provision for reimbursement for adoption leave. The amendment only provides for Government's reimbursement to an employer who has granted to a married, widowed or divorced female employee paid leave in connection with her adoption of a child. Single females who adopted are not included.

I would like to ask the Minister why the contradiction when MCYS already allows adoption by singles, and that signals that it is not an immoral thing, but at the same time does not allow the employer to get Government's reimbursement for adoption leave. I would also like to ask the Minister to make consistent its policy and to be clear on the Government's position on this.

Mdm Halimah Yacob: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of this Bill. This Bill provides enhanced maternity benefits and greater protection for women. There are a few aspects of the Bill which I wish to touch on.

For the first time, under this Bill, female executives, managers and confidential staff are now legally entitled to employer-paid maternity benefit. They can claim paid maternity leave of up to

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eight weeks from the employers for the first two children. Hitherto, for these women, their entitlement to this benefit depends on their contract of service. Most good employers would provide this benefit, but it is something contractual or purely at the discretion of the employer.

When the Children Development Co-Savings Act (CDCA) was passed a few years ago, conferring paid maternity benefit to all female employees for the third child, a serious anomaly arose. It resulted in a situation where for female executives, managers and confidential staff, the maternity benefit for the third child is guaranteed but not for the first and second child. This Bill will address this anomaly. Maternity leave is a very basic and core benefit and should be given statutory protection, regardless of a woman's position in the workplace. This is commonplace in the legislation of many countries and recognises the priority which society places on the needs of pregnant women and mothers with new born infants. The NTUC has been raising this matter many times and we are glad that this change is finally made.

Another important protection, Sir, under the Bill is that stipulated under the various provisions of the new section 17 which make it an offence for an employer to contravene sections 81 and 84 of the Employment Act. Under section 81 of the Employment Act, it is an offence for an employer to dismiss or even serve a notice of dismissal on a female employee when she is on maternity leave. Under section 84 of the Employment Act, it is wrongful for an employer to dismiss a female employee without valid reasons when she is in her sixth month of pregnancy onwards. These are important protection already provided for women covered under the Employment Act but which are now extended to female executives, managers and confidential staff under the Bill. Indeed, it is meaningless to provide for the payment of

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maternity benefit if there is no corresponding protection against wrongful dismissals when women avail themselves of the benefit. I strongly therefore support this amendment.

The second weakness under the existing law which the Bill seeks to remedy is the lack of an effective enforcement mechanism. Despite the fact that the CDCA requires employers to pay maternity benefits to their female employees for the third child, there is no proper mechanism to deal with those who refuse to do so. This is now taken care of by the new section 12(1) which empowers the Minister for Manpower to investigate any complaints and to prosecute any employer who fails to pay maternity benefits or who contravenes any of the provisions of the law which prohibit dismissals due to pregnancy-related reasons. The new provision will strengthen the law in protecting women, and I support it.

The third improvement brought about by the law is the 24 days' paid leave accorded to female employees who adopt children. This is indeed a novel provision and will help couples who are unable to have their own children to adopt one. As the Minister had said, this is meant to affirm the Government's commitment to families and is certainly a most progressive aspect of the legislation.

Finally, Sir, the new section 22 of the CDCA provides that for confinements which occurred between 1st August 2004 and 30th September 2004, female employees will be entitled to the additional four weeks of benefit only if the employers agree to grant them leave of absence. This means that during the transition period, if employers refuse to grant the female employees the additional four weeks, they will be deprived of the payment from the Government. I would

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like to urge all employers to provide the additional four weeks to their female employees and to see this as an important investment in their employees' welfare and not just a cost item. At the same time, I would like to ask the Minister what measures will be taken to encourage employers to do so, so that women who give birth between 1st August 2004 and 30th September 2004 can benefit from these additional four weeks of maternity leave.

Sir, I support the Bill.

Ms Braema Mathiaparanam: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Bill, and I have a few comments to make.

This Bill is much welcomed as it spells out the new measures that come under the recent announcements and the processes to improve work-life balance schemes. The speediness with which these policies are given the momentum is much appreciated.

There are three comments that I have to make. First, this Bill is still, as we have said before, motherhood centric and does not give enough recognition to the role that fathers play or have to play. As the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, it is important that the signal to the society comes clearly that fathers and mothers play an equal role in this aspect of bringing up children. And if we are truly concerned with work-life balances, it is important for employers to be guided well and to be steered into viewing family responsibilities. In some instances, the 12 weeks of maternity leave could have easily been packaged as parental leave with eight weeks' compulsory maternity leave and four weeks for the spouses to decide who is the better party to share that and to work it with the employers.

The second point that I would like to make is the stay-at-home mums who have

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made a deliberate choice to give up their careers and look after their newborns. Their consideration here is that they receive only $75 in infant care subsidy as compared to $400 for working mums. This disparity ought not to be there as, in some instances, fathers and mothers are making a deliberate choice to make do with one income and not all of them may come from well-to-do homes, that it is a choice of luxury. We can offer the same subsidies but perhaps provision can be made that they receive them on a sliding scale so that mothers or fathers will eventually return to the workforce and not see it, through their children, a potential cash cow.

Thirdly, in this Bill, there should be a provision to protect the unmarried mother. She is a woman who falls into either of two categories - that she has become pregnant through an accident and is now with a child or a woman who has decided on her own to walk not down the path of the aisle and forgoes her boyfriend. Either way, she has made a deliberate choice; she has given up the option of an abortion and has decided to bring the baby to full term. Knowing full well the consequences and the stigma that is often attached to such a state, yet she goes ahead to walk this path because she cannot bring herself to abort the child or to be dependent on an unreliable boyfriend. There are such women among us. We have been told, from a recent newspaper report, that there are about 500 such babies, and 50 of such mothers have already formed a support group. I know some of them. They are responsible mothers. They do not play the victim role; neither do they play the martyr role. They are just trying to get by

in a place that is not very friendly to them or their children.

As such, this Bill does not make a provision for them to enjoy child relief even when these single mothers are working. They are not entitled to any

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Government paid maternity leave. And as we heard earlier, the Minister is saying that the maternity leave is a way to recognise the fact that the mother needs some recuperation. These single unwed mothers are in the same category, and they have to depend on the goodwill of their employers to gain some maternity leave. While they are more dependent on the kindness of their parents to look after their children, there is no grandparent relief scheme available to them either.

This Bill has provisions for those who are married, divorced or widowed. This particular group of women is totally left out. I think we have to face the fact that some men would rather walk away from their responsibility of their unborn child and that some women would rather go the whole way on their own than put up with a marriage that from day one they know it is going to be a tumultuous experience. It is a brave decision to bring a baby to full term and face a lifetime of bringing up a child alone. We ought to bring this group into the fold under these schemes and not see it as a way of encouraging women to have children out of wedlock. There must be enough disincentives to do that already. We do not need to use this.

Lastly, while the Bill spells out a whole slew of good measures, what is more important is how we implement them and how these are monitored. Eventually, it is my hope that the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports will also view and relook at how society is making its decision on what we see as a personal choice and maybe, as work in progress, to relook at the definition of "family".

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan: Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Members for their contributions and I will take them one by one.

I agree with Dr Amy Khor for the need for family-friendly work practices and

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increased options for part-time work. But this is not something which can be easily solved through legislation. We will have to work with the employers, we will have to encourage and to educate. I note her suggestion on whether subsidies should be provided for home-based infant care. I think this is something which will need to be studied very carefully before we make any commitment in this area.

Ms Irene Ng talked about adoptions by singles. I think in her own speech, she did acknowledge that our policies are necessarily biased towards being family centric. Whilst as a concession or as an exception, we allow singles to adopt children, this does not, in any way, erode our fundamental belief that the best place, the best circumstances, to bring up children is in the context of an intact family. So, yes, we do allow singles to adopt, but that does not necessarily mean that we should extend all the benefits and incentives for intact families to singles who wish to adopt. It is the exception rather than the norm.

In Mdm Halimah's speech, I am glad to say that I can agree with practically all the points that she has made. It seems she has been so supportive. I would also echo, however, her encouragement to employers to take advantage of the Government's generosity during this transitional period from 1st August to 31st September to grant the qualifying employees leave and let the Government reimburse them. But, again, this is something which we cannot legislate because, by definition, this Act only comes into effect on 1st October. So, again, this is an opportunity for employers to show good faith. It is something which both Government and the trade unions will work very closely with employers, and this would be a good opportunity for tripartism in action.

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I want to move on to Ms Braema's speech. There have been a lot of criticisms that all these packages are too women centric and too motherhood centric, and that perhaps we are not focusing enough on the role of fathers. Let me state categorically that we all in this Chamber do believe that fathers have a very, very important role to play. We also all believe that fathers can do more. But we must not mistake or wishfully believe that simply legislating maternity leave will solve the problem. As a father and as a husband, I will freely tell you the main limiting factor for father's contribution in his child's life is not time. There is always time, with a five-day week and with annual leave. There is actually more time. The problem is one of values, of attitudes and commitment. And we need to fix it at that level. But to pretend that simply legislating maternity leave will fix the problem of attitudes, values and commitment is wishful thinking. So let us address the problem at its root and accept that this is something which fathers and men will have to work through in negotiation with their wives and children.

As far as stay-at-home mothers are concerned, I think it is important to get the perspective right, that the subsidies we provide for infant care and childcare are basically to assist women who choose to or need to return to work and therefore need the availability of childcare and infant care facilities which are very expensive compared to, say, kindergarten care. So because we recognise there is this need for women who wish to go back to work, we have come out with this package of subsidies. In the case of mothers who stay at home, I want to add that I do not want to enter into a debate as to which is the right course or who is doing more or which is more valuable. I think there are no right answers. These are personal decisions. But in the case of mothers who choose to stay at home, you will have to admit that they have, in a

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sense, a lesser need to use childcare and infant care facilities, than for mothers who are engaged at work. So that is the reason why, although as a concession, I would add that we have provided some subsidies for stay-at-home mothers who wish to avail themselves of childcare and infant care facilities. We have not added those subsidies at the same level as working mothers.

I want to end by referring to her point on unwed mothers. I think Ms Irene Ng also brought up this issue. The fundamental point here is that the State cannot and should not be the surrogate father or surrogate husband. So let us recognise that that is where the crux of the issue is, that is, a breakdown in the relationship. There is a breakdown in the sense of responsibility by the person concerned. Again, to assume wishfully that we can solve the problem by getting the State to step in would be a big, big mistake. Having said that, however, we recognise that unwed mothers have needs, and that is why they still have entitlements to maternity leave under the Employment Act and that is why if they choose to put their children in childcare or infant care while they go out to work, they will also receive subsidies. So the point here is that we cannot argue for equality because that would be missing the crux of the issue. But we recognise that there are needs and we will do our best to help them, but they cannot be pegged at the same level as women who are married, or who were previously married and are now divorced, or are widowed through no fault of their own.

So, in this entire debate, let us not get distracted by peripheral issues or by wishful thinking, but focus on what we are trying to do, which is not to prescribe how many children you should have, not to prescribe how you should order your family life or domestic life. What we are all affirming is the value of intact families and the value of children to our society,

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and that the most that the Government can do is to assist in a small way. But the primary responsibility lies in each of us as individuals, as spouses and as parents to make decisions, and these decisions have consequences.

Dr Ng Eng Hen: Mr Deputy Speaker, just a point of clarification for married mothers. Married mothers, covered under the Employment Act, do have rights. They are entitled to 12 weeks of maternity leave and the first eight weeks for two confinements, they are entitled to be paid by their employer if they have served their employer for at least 180 days.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Dr Vivian Balakrishnan].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.