February 28, 2023

A declining birth rate in Singapore has been a reality for some time. However, the current situation might spell demographic trouble: it had recently been confirmed that Singapore’s total fertility rate has dropped to its historical lowest of 1.05. Among other policies designed to combat this trend of decreasing fertility, the Singapore government recently announced plans to double the amount of paternity leave (paid by the government) from the current two weeks to four weeks beginning in 2024.

In ‘Paternity Leave Has Doubled, But Do Fathers Dare to Take More of it?’ (Straits Times, February 2023), Professor Jean Yeung (NUS Sociology and Anthropology, Centre for Family & Population Research, and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine) and Associate Professor Vincent Chua (NUS Sociology and Anthropology) weigh in on the challenges facing paternity leave policies.

Prof Yeung lauds the new move to expand paid paternity leave as an enabler for fathers. To her, it signals that spending time with their newborns and playing a role in their children’s development is a right, not just a responsibility. Drawing on results from a longitudinal study she heads, SG LEADS, she argues that paternity leave and paternal involvement in childcare can improve family dynamics as well as fertility outcomes.

Prof Yeung’s study also finds that fathers in labour-intensive or lower-income roles tend to be less likely to take paternity leave. She argues that this segment of the population and their employers should be a key focus for policymakers when ironing out the creases in paternity leave policy. Part of this involves convincing employers about the business benefits of granting employees time off for paternal duties. Another part of the solution is educating fathers on the importance of their involvement in childcare.

Citing the tensions between work and the family, A/P Chua also adds that care must be taken to avoid a situation where fathers, like mothers before, are penalised at work for their commitments at home. He emphasises that the economy needs the household to survive in the long run, as younger generations of the workforce must be replenished through families.

Read the Straits Times article here: https://news.nus.edu.sg/paternity-leave-has-doubled-but-do-fathers-dare-take-more-of-it/

Read an article in Bloomberg where Prof Yeung was interviewed here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-14/singapore-to-double-paternity-leave-to-support-families

Watch Prof Yeung’s interview with Channel 8 here: https://www.8world.com/singapore/budget-2023-marriage-and-parenthood-reax-2054831

Read the Journal of Marriage and Family article with findings from SG LEADS, ‘Paternity leave, family dynamics, and children’s behavior in Singapore’ here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jomf.12896

Learn more about the SG LEADS study here: https://fass.nus.edu.sg/cfpr/sgleads/