Singapore’s population and economy are seeing great shifts — an ageing population as well as disruptive technologies impacting the future of work. People are leaving their jobs or staying out of work to care for their elderly and companies are restructuring to address manpower to optimise productivity in these times of change.
In a 2018 Ministry of Manpower (MOM) survey, out of the 168,300 unemployed female residents aged 40 to 59, who are not in the labour force, one in five (33,200) cited caregiving to families/relatives (excludes childcare) as the main reason for not working. 33,200 persons is the equivalent of a full year’s birth cohort of manpower. Caregiving is ranked second after housework as a reason for not working by women aged of 50 to 59 and ranked third after housework and childcare for women aged 40 to 49.
It is crucial for all Singaporeans, including caregivers, to have the chance and choice to earn a steady source of income to meet current expenses and more importantly to strengthen their retirement adequacy.
A 2017 NTUC U Family study on 529 Stay-at Home-Women aged 25 to 54, who left the workforce to fulfil their caregiving responsibilities to families/relatives, revealed that 62.8% are mostly looking for part-time jobs compared to 37.2% seeking full time work, affirming the demand for part-time work. Separately, a MOM 2018 report saw Singapore’s full-time employment rate ranked 9th against 36 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations for older workers and only 23rd for part time work.
For these caregivers to be able to keep or return to work, two things must happen:
• Firstly, there must be enough quality yet affordable eldercare services in the community for caregivers to entrust their family care recipients to so that they would not need to quit their work entirely in the first instance, or to be able to take on part-time work if they cannot take on full time jobs. This is akin to scaling up childcare provisions in the community so that mothers do not need to choose between working and caring for their children. Households, companies and country all benefit from such a transformation. In what scale, mix of eldercare services and sustainable funding model would be needed to activate this middle-age segment of the population to allow for a similar win-win outcome? NTUC calls for a tripartite effort to examine this to open the way.
• Secondly, women are a critical source of talent and manpower and their economic potential must be fully maximised. For employers, it is significant as MOM estimates that the local workforce will begin to plateau from the early 2020s.
Are employers in Singapore able to absorb this additional supply of such manpower? The main work organisation and manpower model used by employers in Singapore is the full-time model. Despite years of calls to employers to render work arrangements more flexible and the provision of government incentives to do so, uptake has been slow. Doing more of the same may not substantially change things.
Therefore, it is critical for a systematic reform of the manning models used by companies in Singapore to more smartly integrate full-time and non-full-time flexible work options. NTUC calls for a tripartite effort to fundamentally review how this can be done, taking into account the success of such efforts in other thriving advance economies and local best practices.
Ms Koh Leh Choo, 61, is fortunate to benefit from part-time work. She left her full-time nursing job in February 2017 after her elderly father, 87, suffered a stroke. She now works part-time or three times a week as a homecare nurse at NTUC Health. “I’m his primary caregiver and my father needs me”, says Koh, who is single and has siblings but with their own families. “Not only does this part-time work arrangement allow me to keep my skills current and earn a steady source of income, but it gives me and my father peace of mind.”
DSG Heng Chee How explains, “In the same way NTUC Childcare was set up in the 70s to help mothers return to work we hope improving eldercare services can relieve de facto family care givers so that they can return to work part-time and earn an income for their own retirement, while still caring for their families. Employers, on the other hand, can now tap on this latent workforce as a valuable resource for their manpower needs.
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