Given Singapore’s ageing population, working adult children may increasingly find themselves having to accompany elderly parents for medical appointments or dealing with care arrangements after a health emergency.
Many will have to dip into their annual leave for this, as not all firms in Singapore provide parent care or family care leave. While civil servants get two days of parent care leave a year, only 13.2 per cent of private firms offer such leave, according to 2020 data from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).
Should parent care leave be made mandatory to cope with an ageing society? With long life expectancies and a record-low total fertility rate of 1.04 in 2022, Singaporeans face increasing responsibilities to care for the elderly.
Of course, more leave is always welcome from the employee’s perspective. Having leave days carved out for parent care can also reassure employees that their needs and quality of life outside of work are considered by employers.
But some have pointed out that more statutory leave may make things tricky for businesses when manpower is already a problem. There were calls to make elderly parent care compulsory as early as 2013, but we are still not there yet.
Increasing the number of statutory days of leave comes at a cost to businesses, especially to smaller companies.
A lean company, for instance, may find it difficult to cover the roles of another employee if he or she is on an additional day of leave. This in turn impacts productivity and potentially revenue for the organisation.
Hiring additional manpower to cover these gaps is also not easy. Singapore’s labour market is still tight: Unemployment rates remained low and job vacancies were still high at 99,600 in March according to MOM.
Even if companies were to offer non-statutory parent care leave, there might be disagreement when it comes to the number of days allocated. Two or three days may be sufficient to accompany relatively healthier parents for medical visits, but this is far from enough for caregivers of those with medical emergencies or advanced conditions.
At the crux of the matter is not the number of days of leave, but whether there is a supportive and caring workplace culture.
Companies can ensure those impacted by caregiving arrangements are able to request days off and show flexibility, such as by rescheduling team meetings. They can work with employees on how best to reciprocate, such as by eventually making up the hours or producing deliverables on time, while being mindful that a work-absorbed culture will also steal quality time away.
For example, caregivers whose minds are “stuck” on work can end up providing physical company, but not the needed emotional support to their parents. Depression is an issue among the elderly and caregivers, for reasons such as social isolation, the death of a spouse, and longstanding medical conditions.
Almost 40 per cent of Singaporeans aged 62 or older reported being lonely. Clearly, more needs to be done to ensure that the working generation is able to provide their elderly parents support for all aspects of well-being: Physical, social and psychological.
There needs to be better communication among management, human resources and employees on the best approach. Employers concerned about potential abuse of the leave system may ask employees (at least initially) to provide documentation, such as a medical certificate or an appointment chit.
Depending on employee demographic and needs, management may decide to offer more parent care leave as part of corporate benefits or grant more leave on an ad-hoc basis. Companies can review these policies every few years to make beneficial adjustments.
Overall, companies will benefit by promoting a flexible work culture with parent or family care in mind. Parent care leave could even make employers stand out in a tight labour market if more workers expect to take on some caregiving.
It is a caring workplace culture, not parent care leave, that needs to be mandated. But can it?
The way forward in balancing business interests with caregiving responsibilities is one Singapore has to chart itself, though overseas examples can provide some ideas. In Australia, employees are entitled to 10 paid days of personal leave that encompasses sick leave and carer’s leave. In Germany, legislation provides for up to 10 days of unpaid leave in case of a care emergency.
However, the societal norms are different. In these countries, seniors typically retire on their own or live in retirement homes, often far away from their children, using their savings and pension benefits to fund living expenses.
In Singapore, multi-generational households are more common. Many working adults continue to support their parents financially and non-financially even if they do not live together. Caregiving duties may be spread across several family members or involve domestic helpers, though family members ultimately make caregiving decisions.
Corporate policies need to accommodate these unique societal norms too – and flexible work arrangements will be crucial.
Employees’ family duties can be accommodated in many ways – be it childcare or maternity and paternity leave. Perhaps some companies need more time to adjust to the increase in government-paid paternity leave from 2024, and there will also be those who will only move on parent care leave when there is a stronger signal from the government.
A more inclusive workplace that befits an ageing society must start with the mindset that supporting employees or colleagues in their lives outside of work will result in a better situation for everyone, including at work.
The article first appeared on CNA.