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Infant care, childcare leave for single parents as well

SINGAPORE — The call for single mothers to enjoy the same policy benefits as their married counterparts has long been uttered, and yesterday the Government responded, announcing that it would extend infant care and childcare leave to those who have children out of wedlock.

SINGAPORE — The call for single mothers to enjoy the same policy benefits as their married counterparts has long been uttered, and yesterday the Government responded, announcing that it would extend infant care and childcare leave to those who have children out of wedlock.

From May 1, unwed single parents will get the same parental leave entitlements as married parents and parents who are divorced or widowed: Six days of paid childcare leave annually if their child is below age seven, and six days of unpaid infant care leave until their child turns two.

They will also get the two days of paid childcare leave a year when their children are between the ages of seven and 12, as announced in the enhanced Marriage and Parenthood package in January.

Highlighting single-parent households as one of two groups that fell under “vulnerable families” that the Government pledged more help for, Acting Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing said: “We understand and appreciate that many of these families need additional support, especially single mothers. But single mothers are not a uniform group — there are unwed single mothers, there are divorced single mothers, there are widowed single mothers ... We will continue to strive to provide better support for families under duress.”

The other group comprises those who need “medium-term assistance” — of between five and 10 years — because of “complex” circumstances, such as children of incarcerated parents, and parents of children with learning disabilities, Mr Chan said. These people fell outside of ComCare assistance but did not need permanent help under the Public Assistance Scheme, he noted.

Mr Chan said: “We are reviewing to see how we can pilot a scheme to hand-hold these people out of the dark that they are in ... The most important thing for this group of people is for us as a community, as a nation, to muster a group of volunteers and mentors to walk the journey with them so that their children will have a better future in time to come.”

GOVT’S PRO-FAMILY STANCE STAYS: SOCIOLOGISTS

The Government has long resisted calls to equalise parental benefits for unwed parents, citing the need to protect the traditional family structure.

Currently, single mothers get eight weeks’ paid maternity leave, half that of what married mothers potentially get. Sociologists said the opening up of parental leave benefits to single parents should not be read as the Government relenting on its stance.

Associate Professor Paulin Tay-Straughan said: “It’s a safety net approach to enable and empower any parent to take good care of the child. The Government is not acceding to any call to rethink a more liberal family structure.”

National University of Singapore Associate Professor Tan Ern Ser added that it signalled a shift of focus toward every child’s welfare, rather than the “moral values or circumstances leading to his or her conception”. He also noted that the changes were “important symbolically in regard to supporting the principle of equality of opportunity in a meritocracy”.

Describing the measures as “long overdue”, Nanyang Technological University sociologist Teo You Yenn noted that a “common claim to justify discrimination is that removing discrimination will encourage ‘lifestyle’ choices of single parenthood”.

“This is highly implausible. A great deal of effort, money and personal sacrifice is required for raising a child in contemporary Singapore; we know that raising children as single parents is tremendously difficult,” said Assistant Professor Teo, who is also a board member of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE). “Ours is a situation where married couples with two incomes are limiting their fertility, not one where people will eagerly ‘choose’ to raise children alone.”

During the Committee of Supply debate, some Members of Parliament, such as Punggol East MP Lee Li Lian, urged the Government to go even further in supporting single mothers by giving them the full maternity leave benefits. “Marital status is not really relevant because maternity leave is really for emotional bond building as well as physical recuperation for the mother,” she said.

Agreeing, AWARE Executive Director Corinna Lim noted that unwed mothers are also ineligible for childcare subsidies, which she described as a “huge setback” for the group. She said: “Unwed mothers often tend to be sole breadwinners who have to go to work to earn a living for themselves and their children, and they can’t do this without affordable childcare. Single mothers can easily fall into a poverty cycle if they are deprived of this social support.”

She added: “Continuing to deny unwed mothers of maternity leave, childcare subsidies and other benefits holds us back from giving every child an equal start in life and bridging the gap between the rich and the poor.”

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Budget 2013

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