Baktee
More employers providing nursing rooms today
Results of an online poll conducted by NTUC U Family in June this year on 698 working mothers found that more workplaces are now providing greater support for lactation facilities.
About 60 per cent of the respondents indicated that their companies provide nursing rooms for breastfeeding mothers – a 25 per cent rise from 2013.
However, the poll also found that 31 per cent out of the remaining respondents who are not provided with private nursing facilities had to express milk in areas such as toilets and storerooms.
“The Labour Movement continues to call on government agencies to review the use of gross floor areas for lactation facilities and help existing office building owners who have used up the permissible gross floor area to look into unused common spaces to install public nursing rooms.
“Employers are encouraged to introduce breastfeeding-friendly workplace policies and a supportive culture for their breastfeeding working mothers,” said NTUC U Family.
Moving forward, NTUC U Family will introduce online courses to help prepare mothers to continue breastfeeding upon returning to work.
Top Challenge Working Women Face
A survey conducted by Jobstreet.com found that women in Singapore are still facing challenges in striking a work-life balance.
Key findings released on 22 July 2016 showed that working mothers spend less than two hours with their children on workdays.
Seventy per cent of the 480 female respondents said that they would give up working if they had the financial means to do so.
Other challenges faced by women at the workplace include having to look after their children while building a career, a lack of career advancement opportunities and gender-salary gap.
Commenting on the survey, NTUC Women’s Committee Chairperson K Thanaletchimi said: “It is undeniably true that women in Singapore continue to struggle between work and family life. Work has become an economic necessity to raise a family for most women in this highly competitive environment.
“There must be a collective will for employers, government and society as a whole to lessen this load of both emotional and financial struggles which women are having to go through at various stages of life.”
