Keep kids in school till 7pm so mums can go to work?

Keep kids in school till 7pm so mums can go to work?
PHOTO: Keep kids in school till 7pm so mums can go to work?
Above photo is Ms Grace Fu, Cabinet Minister, at her Ministry of Foreign Affairs office.

SINGAPORE - To get more women into the workforce, keep children in school until 7pm.

And how about allowing companies that hire more women to employ more foreign workers?

These were among the radical suggestions thrown up yesterday by women MPs at a dialogue session with 80 employers.

With the current labour crunch, it is "perfect timing" for firms to think about how to get more women to enter the workforce, said Ms Grace Fu, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office.

Ms Fu, who heads a team that is working on a paper regarding this issue, said that the employment rate among women over 40 is lower in Singapore than in other Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan.

Of the 691,000 women who are not working, 43 per cent said it was because of family responsibilities such as taking care of children.

Further, 18 per cent of the 62,500 women university graduates here are not economically active.

"There is a big pool of workers to tap," said MP for West Coast GRC Foo Mee Har, who yesterday presented various ideas on how to buck the trend.

One proposal involved setting up day-care facilities at schools that would enable children to stay until 7pm so working parents would not have to worry about who was looking after them.

They would be able to stay on at school and do homework or take part in extra-curricular activities.

Other preliminary ideas floated include giving companies with women-friendly policies more flexibility in hiring foreigners and giving maternity leave to fathers so mothers can return to work earlier.

Childcare leave could also be offered to single parents and grants given to companies to help offset the cost of restructuring human resource strategies and subsidising the cost of retraining women who return to work.

Employers attending the session welcomed the ideas, but some said they lacked the know-how to effectively implement flexi-work arrangements.

Ms Laurel Loi, a director at law firm AbrahamLow, said: "It would be good if there was a grant to help companies make use of technology so that employees could log into the company server from home or do tele-conferencing."

Ms Fu, who chairs the Women's Wing of the People's Action Party, also highlighted the importance of bringing women back to the workforce.

"If they do not stay in the workforce long enough, they do not save enough for their old age. Women should be financially secure as far as possible," she said.

She added that a pro-family life-work culture and flexible work arrangements are important considerations for women, especially for mothers who are deciding whether to continue working.

In October last year, the PAP Women's Wing said it would champion women-related issues such as more flexible work arrangements for mothers and easier re-entry into the workforce.

Ms Fu said a final set of recommendations would be submitted to the Ministry of Manpower in February next year.

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