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Dear Speaker
The Covid-19 pandemic and the circuit breaker have gotten many of our families to experience first-hand, and more than ever before, the maniacal task of balancing work, household and childcare duties. Of course, this juggling act is nothing new to many women. After all, they had and still assumed the bulk of care-giving duties. For many men like myself, we are getting a really close first-row view of the Herculean effort needed to work from home, get through the work calls while participating in home-based learning (HBL), attending to potty calls and getting food on the table. The circuit breaker is perhaps also called the “Grand Resocialization of the Working Men”. It would have been clear to many by now that juggling work and family should never have been just a women's thing. It is a family's thing.
For my many male friends with young children and had the chance to work from home, this was the golden age of family togetherness. We are mindful that not all families could do that, especially those in essential services and needed at the frontlines. We are fortunate that we get to participate deeper than ever in our children's lives. We learned how they learn. We learned how they like to be loved. We learned how to love all over again. And amidst this strengthened bedrock of family, we discovered working without ostensibly losing productivity. We saw how work and family can thrive if only we work together.
In taking on more caregiving duties, we were forced to probe and challenge the fallacies of gendered norms. There might be a sea change in gendered norms creating a wave of gender equality greater than that experienced before. It is an important change that a progressive society must embrace. And we would do well to keep the momentum going. As we ought not to let a good crisis go to waste, we should also not let this revival of the family togetherness go to waste.
For a very long time, even now, we have often framed flexible work arrangement (FWA) as a support to caregivers, especially women on maternity or with young children. We have framed it such as that women need more support. Covid-19 has torn up such a frame. It is still true that they need more support. But that support must be a family-based one with men strongly leaning in and making that change. For the first time since the advent of work,have we seen so many people on FWA. But it is evident that FWA can only work if one, there is a strong caregiving infrastructure, andtwo, FWA is pervasive. For example, wherein FWA is unable to apply for essential workers needed in a hospital, a good childcare is critical for those workers. For those who can work from home, both parents need to be around.Both of them will need FWA.
The post-CB and Covid-19 workplace will not and must not be the same. FWA is after all no longer just a mark of a progressive employer but the enabler of a safer workplace. Many companies such as Facebook, Twitter and larger banks are preparing for some of their workforce to be telecommuting permanently. It is their way of building resilience within the workforce and perhaps also reap savings from reducing city office rentals and lost productivity through commuting.
Thus, the Pandemic has showed employers that employees cannot be productive without accommodating for their family responsibilities. We must now consider institutionalising the right to FWA for families. Such a right was previously denied to workers because companies found it impossible to adjust their business processes. Where CEOs have failed, Covid-19 has succeeded. Even traditional companies are conducting their work via Zoom. Employers should have a better idea now of how to successfully operationalise telecommuting, and even other forms of FWA. Covid-19 will bring down that last bastion of industrial era workplace practices.
Now, as much as it is difficult to look beyond the next months on how deep this crisis might be, some forward-looking companies are already looking at the scale and structure of their workforce. This is critical to emerging stronger from this crisis. We will need to consider changing the traditional work structure which is incompatible with the modern workforce. The traditional work structure assumes that there is a spouse at home or childcare centre that allows that employee to work 9 - 12 hours at the shopfloor or office. The new work structure prioritises caregiving and equips an employee to work away from the office.
On the other hand, we do acknowledge that not all businesses have the resources to allow for full telecommuting and FWA. With so many of our workers in SMEs, it is an important obstacle to overcome, and we must do more to help them. The Work-Life grant has been instrumental. Can we also consider enhancing this so that we can entrench telecommuting and FWA for the smaller companies?
Also, even though schools and childcare are slowly reopening, we need to be prepared for the possibility that we may have to close them again, should a second wave occur.We must explore how childcare or student care can be better provided if the whole family needs to remain at home. I have heard of some who even provided babysitting services and entertainment over Zoom for slightly older children.
The next thing, is that the pandemic has also forced us to re-examine breadwinning versus caregiving. Breadwinning has always occupied primacy roles-- after all, it generates economic output. Caregiving is that supporting enabler of breadwinning. This crisis has shown that we need both to be as important if we want to evolve to a higher form of the workforce. Thus, we will need to change our mindset on a couple of things.
One, valuing caregiving and unpaid work correctly. We have usually given higher childcare subsidies to working women. There are good reasons for doing this. Firstly, it encourages higher workforce participation rate and secondly, only those who work need childcare. But what if one of them has another family member that needs caregiving? And does keeping a household going require as much effort as working? Shorter duration of child or student care service is needed even by the best of home-makers at times. I hope that we can value unpaid work more accurately and provide greater support to our home-makers.
This crisis has illustrated that we need a caregiving infrastructure as much as building tunnels, and data networks. This infrastructure should help families to better cope with family caregiving such as balancing the costs of child and elder caregiving. In addition, with the added medical checks and costs of running childcare and eldercare facilities, fees might increase and increase the burden on families. How, then, can the Government reassure families?
Lastly, as I was hopelessly trying to attend to HBL and work calls, even this morning, it dawned on me how lucky I was to have my wife to rotate HBL duties. Many families have that type of arrangement. But what about single parent families? The support for them is even more needed.
Support for youths
Next, I would like to turn my attention to young Singaporeans. With no end in sight to the spread of Covid-19, most companies have put off hiring, if they have not already reduced excess manpower. For the graduating class of 2020 and some graduates in 2019, job prospects are not rosy. Many of them are concerned about getting jobs, let alone getting one of their preferred ones. One resident even told me that her university internship was shortened to part-time because the company’s workload had reduced drastically. This would affect her industrial learning and training exposure.
It is not surprising that many of our younger Singaporeans are anxious, having to worry about job prospects on top of the need to pay off their student loans. Since the pandemic started, Young NTUC, the youth wing of NTUC, has been actively engaging the younger Singaporeans to help them secure jobs, upgrade their skills, and build up resilience in the face of this unprecedented crisis. It has extended its series of career programmes online to provide timely support and career guidance to help fresh graduates and young workers navigate in a post-Covid-19 world.
The Resilience Budget’s student loan repayment relief is also a huge relief for graduating students. We also hope that in this Budget, the Government can work with private education institutions and banks to provide similar relief for our Private Education Institution students. Their tuition fees are unsubsidised and the amount owed can be substantial.
Some studies have suggested that students graduating in a recession year earn less than their peers graduating in non-recession years. And that effect continues for a few years. This is primarily because new hires have scant bargaining powers and companies have reduced manpower budget during such dire times. And pay increases will not jump dramatically post-recession. I would like to suggest a couple of ways to help them. The SGUnited Traineeships programme is very useful. We should also consider incentivising companies to convert these into full-time hires in the long-term.
Even with the additional traineeships, it might not be possible to absorb so many new graduates. For some younger Singaporeans, it might better to stay in school, further their studies or pick up new skills. I suggest that we can help to provide subsidies and loans for their second diplomas, degrees or masters to give them the option to do so. For our NSFs who are going to ORD this year, could the uniformed services consider giving them the option to extend their NS and deepen their skills since training has been compromised due to Covid-19 and that paramedic and security functions continue to be in acute supply?
Notwithstanding my suggestions on the Fortitude Budget, I support the Bill.
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