Child And Elder Care as Reasons for Not Participating in Workforce

Ms Carrie Tan asked the Minister for Manpower (a) for each year from 2015 to 2019, how many persons, disaggregated by age and gender, who are outside of the labour force, cite care for their elderly parents as the main reason for being outside of the labour force; and (b) how many months on average these persons remain outside of the labour force.

Ms Carrie Tan asked about individuals outside the labour force who cite care for their own children or care for elderly parents as the main reason for doing so.

Data from the annual Comprehensive Labour Force Survey shows that in 2018, 144,100 or 4.3% of the resident population cited broader care-giving responsibilities as the main reason. Among these, 55,300 were providing care for own children. There was a slight reduction in 2019, to 133,500 and 52,900 respectively. Around nine in 10 residents who cited care-giving as their main reason were females, and about nine in 10 were in their 30s or over. Data collected prior to 2018 was not directly comparable due to different survey questions being asked.

For those who cited care-giving for own children in 2018 and 2019, the median number of years since their last job was about four to five years. For those who cited care-giving for family members or relatives, the median number of years was eight.

Overall, the resident female employment rate in Singapore is high and is rising. In 2019, the overall resident employment rate for females aged between 25 and 64 was at 73.3%, which is above the OECD average of 66.3%. This has improved from 70.5% in 2014.

Support for care-givers has also been enhanced over the years. For families with young children, we have increased accessibility and affordability of pre-school services. Since 2012, we have doubled full-day pre-school capacity to more than 180,000 places today. We also recently enhanced means-tested pre-school subsidies so that more families pay less for pre-school.

Separately, through the Caregiver Support Action Plan that was announced by MOH in 2019, we have strengthened support for care-givers of seniors. There is also a range of home and community care options to help support the care and social needs of the elderly, to support individuals with care-giving responsibilities while they are at work.

Speaker, I thank the Minister of State for providing the data. Great to know that there are extensive efforts by the relevant Ministries to look into pre-school and also care-givers support, to help women who are disproportionately more impacted by care-giving responsibilities on their employment.

Given that in Singapore, our retirement adequacy is tied almost entirely to employment, and given that we have an ageing population, we can expect that more people, especially women, could be displaced from the workforce due to the rising needs for eldercare. So, would the Minister of State agree that it is important to value the work of care by some measures, so that we can avoid compromising care-givers' retirement adequacy?

My second supplementary question is, perhaps, it is not so fair to just direct this question at MOM, given it already has got a lot under its portfolio. But is there any multi-Ministry attention or cross-Ministry efforts now, in addition to the Caregiver Support Action Plan, to consider identifying long-term care care-givers who are displaced from the workforce to provide them with some form of basic income, either in cash or in the form of CPF top-ups to avoid retirement inadequacy?

I thank Ms Carrie Tan for the two questions. I think they are somewhat related. They are about recognising the sacrifices that care-givers have to make in order to take care of their loved ones at home.

Indeed, we are also very concerned about the retirement preparedness and adequacy of care-givers who out of no choice, are unable to work. Hence, a lot of measures have been put in place to provide support to the care-givers to alleviate their roles at home and with the care-giving duties. At the same time, on the financial side, we have a few schemes to provide financial support.

For example, the Silver Support Scheme has been around since 2016 and has been enhanced recently to provide top-ups, especially for those who do not have enough income through their lifetime, and also, for those who have less means to support themselves.

We have also looked at matching the CPF contributions with the latest scheme so that those who have less CPF balance will be able to have top-ups to make their CPF balance higher than what is the current situation.

CPF members are also able to get additional interest for the first $60,000 of the CPF balances. There is also another one percentage point extra interest for those who are 55 years and above, for the first $30,000 of the combined balances.

I thank the Minister of State. I would really like to reflect some sentiments that residents have surfaced to me. Typically, some of the aunties who have been housewives.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Some housewives stay at home to look after their loved ones for many years. They ask me, "Why is it that my friends who work can receive Workfare? I stay at home, not because I do not want to work; it is because I need to look after my family. Why is it that I can’t receive Workfare?"

(In English): Can we consider a separate scheme that perhaps is some version of Workfare but called "Carefare Income Supplement" in the near future or whatever timeline in the future?

I thank Ms Carrie Tan for an interesting proposal. I think we will keep an open mind to all the various options available to improve support for care-givers. At the same time, I want to emphasise that we also promote strong family ties. For example, my mother is a full-time housewife and I see it as a responsibility for me to take care of her now that she is old and for me to be able to help to make sure she still lives comfortably, given that she has sacrificed so many years for us, the children.

Mr Speaker, I thank the Minister of State for her reply. I just have one supplementary question. At NTUC, I regularly receive feedback from our PMETs, in particular, mothers and those with ageing parents, that they often feel that they have been disadvantaged in their careers due to their care-giving needs.

With COVID-19 drastically changing the way that we work and permanent telecommuting arrangements have now become a reality, I would like to ask if the Ministry has any plans to encourage or even incentivise employers to adopt prolonged telecommuting arrangements for employees with care-giving needs, so that they can both work and care for their loved ones, at the same time.

I thank the Member for the interesting proposal. Indeed, MOM together with our tripartite partners have been strongly advocating flexible work arrangements, not just for care-givers, but for all adults who may be able to achieve better work-life harmony and balance by having that flexibility of working from home, or having staggered work hours, or working part-time.

Certainly, we want to continue to encourage employers to keep an open mind and seize the opportunity to look at expanding the scope of flexible work arrangements for all their employees, regardless of whether they are care-givers or not.