Structuring Singapore for Flourishing Families

Mr Speaker, Sir, recently, I have been going around asking every couple I meet a question, "What would encourage you to have one more child?" Those who are parents smile knowingly. Then, some reply, "Nothing. Nothing would make me consider having one more child."

The Government has tried many financial incentives, but what we need is something money cannot buy – time.

Over the weekend, I visited residents and one had a doormat which read "Tired Adults Club". I jokingly said that I am from the same club. I think many of us here are also from the same club. But the more I thought about it, the less funny it seemed. Young Singaporeans have little breathing space to socialise, to build a community, to find life partners. How will they have babies?

Young couples try the Build-To-Order (BTO) again and again to no avail. Mothers are regarded as risky hires because maternity leave is seen by some employers as a problem to be managed, rather than a milestone to be supported. Infant care waitlists are measured in months, not weeks, and children are too often tolerated rather treasured, seen as noise in public places, inconveniences to career progression and financial burdens rather than the precious gift they are.

We have built world-class infrastructure for economic productivity and ingrained in ourselves a hardworking work culture. But we may not have built the equivalent infrastructure, nor inculcated the same priorities for family life. We must question whether a successful career and a successful home are mutually exclusive.

We need a fundamental rethink across four pillars: time, care, work and housing.

The first pillar is time and breathing space. We cannot build strong families if our young people and parents are running on empty and feel they do not have space to breathe. Work can be all consuming if left to our own devices. We need to provide for employers to be able to play their part.

Presently, the statutory minimum annual leave under section 88A of the Employment Act is seven days, increasing by one each year, up to a cap of 14 years. [Please refer to clarification later in the debate.]

With the ongoing review of the Employment Act, now is the time to increase the minimum annual leave. Seven days of annual leave is really too short. Let us structurally mandate breathing space for our young people to socialise and date, and for people to spend quality time with their families.

We need to structurally mandate "breathing space" for our young people to socialise and date, and for people to spend quality time with their families.

Furthermore, we must recognise the reality of caregiving in our childcare and sick leave policies. I propose that the Government consider allowing employees to utilise their own sick leave based on the Medical Certificates of their dependants, such as young children or elderly parents.

Additionally, we should increase Government-paid childcare leave. Children frequently require checkups and may experience extended bouts of illness. Childcare leave is currently only six days for those aged 0-7, and many times, these are just sufficient to cover preschool closure days. Childcare leave drops to two days for those aged 8-12. If just one child catches hand, foot and mouth disease, how will families cope?

On this, I note that my fellow Members David Hoe and Charlene Chen had raised related Parliamentary Questions last year and they were told that the Government is committed to supporting working parents in caring for heir children and that the Ministry will be reviewing the leave provisions. Will the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to give an update on the review of the leave policies?

The second pillar is strengthening the structures of care. To care for children well, childcare must make sense. We therefore need to relook our policies on childcare, childminding, postpartum care and transport-related friction for care journeys.

First, childcare subsidies should be the same for everyone. Currently, the higher tier of basic infant care and childcare subsidies are available only to a "working main applicant", that is a mother or a single father for divorced, separated or widowed parents, who works at least 56 hours per month. Non-working mothers receive significantly less subsidy than working mothers.

This penalises mothers who choose to be stay-at-home caregivers to their second or subsequent newborn children, or those with modern work arrangements. For example, a mother working as a freelancer may not accumulate enough formal hours to qualify for the working mother subsidy.

Childcare is an essential form of early childhood education and care. Such basic subsidies should be universal for all children, regardless of the mother's employment status.

As a mother shared with me at a People's Action Party Women's Wing Listening Session two weeks ago: "Why s unpaid caregiving at home less valuable than the contributions of a working mom?"

Second, we must increase the accessibility of childcare centres. There are parts of Singapore where parents face long waitlists for nearby Ministry of Education Kindergartens (MK), anchor-operator (AOP) or partner-operator (POP) childcare centres. On the other hand, some centres in older neighbourhoods may have lower take-up.

To address this spatial mismatch, we could provide a limited subsidy to such underutilised operators to fund shuttle services, regardless of whether they are MK, AOP or POP, much like the school bus system our primary school children enjoy. This helps reduce geographic friction, improves spatial mobility and achieves better allocative efficiency for childcare services.

I also propose that, beyond AOP and POP, the Government extends site tender access to all operators, including mid-tier operators, to scale centres to neighbourhoods with high demand. This helps alleviate the high demand with a higher and more diverse supply of options for parents, and not only the Government-supported centres.

Third, we must scale and improve access to flexible childminding options. Families with children often need extra caregiver help. If there is no grandparent or domestic help, parents need additional childminding options.

At the piloted infant childminding services with three operators since December 2024, I would like to ask: what are the preliminary observations from the pilot. What is the take-up of these services? Are there plans to expand the pilot or increase publicity for the pilot? And will the pilot be made permanent and scaled up? If so, what is the timeline for that?

In addition to such professional childminding services, I hope to see neighbourly childminding normalised in Singapore. In Bishan, some playground mummies organise playdates and take turns to look after one another's children. How can we facilitate more of these and build a stronger communal parenting culture? As families in the same estate become friends, they may feel more assured in leaving their children to be minded by one another's families when needs or extenuating circumstances arise. We can suggest guidelines for the respective families to adopt in such informal childminding in the neighbourhood.

Fourth, we also need strong postpartum care. If new parents are well supported in this regard, they will feel more confident in subsequently having more children. As I have previously raised in this House, I propose comprehensive home visitation postpartum support. The Netherlands' "kraamzorg" entitles every mother to 80 hours of trained maternity nurse home care. Taiwan launched government-funded postpartum healthcare checkups in May 2025, providing structured check-ups, including health and postnatal depression screening.

While we currently have follow-up healthcare after delivery, we should enhance this with structured in-home postpartum visits in the first year. Trained maternity nurses could provide guidance on newborn care, breastfeeding, physiotherapy and mental health screening. They could also identify signs of family stress, social isolation or financial difficulty, and coordinate follow-up support with health and social services so families can receive timely counselling and financial assistance.

In all of this, we should not overlook fathers. Many fathers want to be more hands-on. Yet, fathers often feel like bystanders, unsure how to help and anxious about a wife recovering from birth and a baby they do not yet know how to hold.

If postpartum support is to strengthen the whole family, it must include fathers too. I therefore propose that the structured in-home postpartum visits deliberately engage fathers, offering practical guidance on newborn care, on supporting a spouse's physical and emotional recovery, and on recognising the signs of postnatal depression in their spouses, and in themselves. Let us equip fathers to be confident co-parents rather than well-meaning "helpers", so we can build the equal parenting that I hope will one day be the norm in every Singaporean family.

Fifth, to reduce transport-related friction for care journeys, I propose a transport care credit scheme. This is a targeted, flexible transport support for low to lower-middle-income families in Singapore who face high "care journey" transport costs due to family members with specific needs – young children, elderly, persons with permanent or temporary disabilities or medical conditions, where use of public transport is impractical, insufficient, challenging, or burdensome. "Care journeys" would be trips to hospitals, polyclinics or therapy centres.

The grant will be in the form of credits, which can be used for a range of transport options, such as public transport fares, taxis, private hire vehicles and car sharing.

The proposed grant will address the "last mile" problem for individuals and caregivers who need non-standard public transport options for themselves or frail or young dependents but do not qualify for existing disability-specific work schemes. I note that my fellow Member David Hoe had raised a related Parliamentary Question in February. Will the PMO also be able to give an update on the review of these policies?

The third pillar is empowering women and protecting careers. The "motherhood penalty" is real. Women who have children in Singapore experience reductions in earnings and career advancement.

First, we should restructure maternity leave to make business sense for employers so that employers are better able to support career planning for employees who are mothers.

I propose extending maternity leave up to six months, fully Government-paid up to a salary cap, with an optional additional six months at half-pay, also Government-funded up to a cap.

First, hiring maternity cover for a brief 16 weeks is incredibly difficult for employers. By the time they can find the right person and train them, time is over.

Second, mothers feel pressured to rush back to work at the end of the 16 weeks when they may not be ready, in order to keep their jobs. They may end up returning to work but utilising other types of leave or means to provide stepped-down caregiving to their newborn. A six to 12-month window makes it viable for employers to hire contract cover, removing the pressure on mothers to rush back and allowing employers to retain them long-term.

Small employers may face cashflow issues as the Government payment of maternity and other related leave will only be paid on a reimbursement basis, even while the employers may hire additional maternity covers. Will the Government consider a mechanism that could alleviate such cashflow issues for employers?

Second, I propose we introduce a Career Comeback Tax Credit for employers who hire returning stay-at-home parents. This mitigates the parenthood penalty. In this Career Comeback Scheme, companies that hire stay-at-home parent returnees may qualify for a tax deduction on the employee's salary for up to 12 months.

Additionally, we should also encourage employers to redesign certain jobs to offer part-time roles for parents of young children, allowing companies to augment their workforce while keeping parents engaged in the economy so that it will not be a binary choice only between full-time parenting or full-time employment.

Third, we should incentivise and encourage employers to provide flexibility in work schedules and private spaces for mothers to pump breast milk at work. I suggest we introduce a "Make It Work" grant for building owners to install self-contained, lockable lactation pods to provide a safe and conducive space for working moms to pump breast milk at work, and it could include refrigerator space to store breast milk.

Fourth, to help women who are marrying later in life still have a chance at having a child, the Government should consider partially subsidising elective egg freezing (EEF) or allowing MediSave to be used for it. We should, of course, caution the public against the potential misperception that EEF would work miracles. Live-birth success rate remains low. Even as we make EEF more accessible, we should also mitigate the potential issue that subsidising EEF might inadvertently encourage couples to intentionally delay marriage and parenthood. However, EEF is increasingly becoming a necessary response to the reality of later marriages, where our fertility will be adversely affected. While take-up rates might be modest initially, preserving fertility offers couples a vital option. Once the biological clock passes, it is past. We should give couples the chance of still having children.

The fourth pillar is housing for family formation. Our housing policies must proactively encourage larger and inter-generational families. If we want families to grow, we must give them the physical space to do so.

I propose allowing large families or two-family units, comprising elderly parents and couples with children, to apply for "side-by-side" 3-room or 4-room BTO units, with the structural option to knock down the dividing wall. We should mandate that HDB designs future blocks to make this practically feasible. Additionally, families with two or more young children should be given priority and expanded options to ballot and receive additional grants for 5-room or larger units across BTO and Sales of Balance Flats.

Currently, there is a Third Child Priority Scheme. We should have a "Second Child Priority Scheme" also for 5-room BTOs and Sales of Balance Flats. The leap from one to two children is where the spatial crunch hits hardest, often requiring domestic help or a live-in parent. We should thus provide priority earlier.

I also propose a Family Expansion Grant targeted at the HDB resale market. If a family has a second or subsequent child and needs to upgrade to a 5-room flat, they can receive a targeted CPF grant to offset the cost of a larger resale flat. This solves the spatial issue now, without waiting for BTO construction.

Mr Speaker, I am not asking the Government to merely spend more money on financial incentives for people to have children. I am asking the Government to make a wholly different and wholesome kind of commitment, so people feel secure raising a family in Singapore.

Even so, the Government alone cannot solve this. It takes our whole society. So that our society will view parenthood as valuable, beautiful, joyful and not a high stakes competition, so that everyone will play their part in supporting families to flourish. And as a stay-at-home father told me, so that success in Singapore can go beyond the "5Cs", but also celebrate our children, the “C” that matters the most for building our nation. Let us start chasing that sixth “C”.

Some people have told me they do not want to bring children into a world of pain and suffering. And I get it. The world is scary. But there is also much joy and beauty that our world still holds. Very often, I see that in the eyes of a young child.

When I see our children, I see the future of Singapore. Joyful, energetic, caring and most precious of all, cute. Like many others, I was delighted when we saw selfies of babies popping up on the official LTA, MCCY, and gov.sg's social media pages. Many others have hopped on that trend. And many of us felt a spark of that childlike wonder and joy. That is the kind of Singapore I hope we will build. Not a tired adults club but a country that actually has the time and space to enjoy our children.

And in that Singapore, if we were to ask couples if they want to have one more child, the answer would be, "Why not?" [Applause.]