This encourages fathers to become more involved in parenting and help reverse the decline in Singapore's birth rate.
ATTRACTIONS,
- $4,000 + THEIR PAID LEAVE when father takes fourth month for paternity leave.
- SINGLE AND UNMARRIED PARENTS given benefits that married couples do.
Madam Halimah Yacob, co-chair of the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices, said she had been calling since the start of last year for fathers to be allowed to take up to two weeks of the four months of paid maternity leave.
STATISTICS,
- Fertility rate dropped from 2.1 to 1.16 per woman last year.
- 91% of respondents felt paternity leave be compulsory.
- 6 out of 10 wanted last 4 weeks of maternity leave to be transferable from mother to father.
"It will not raise the falling birth rate overnight. Will it go somewhere in helping the situation? I think it will.", said Mr Seah Kian Peng who has been pushing for compulsory paternity leave sine 2007.
Aware is looking at talking to parliamentarians to ask them to take up this cause during the coming Budget debate.
