Paid eldercare has returned to the Singapore national agenda, with renewed calls for employers to provide mandatory paid leave to care for elderly relatives.
"While we are prepared to study the idea of senior care leave in consultation with tripartite partners, we should allow some time for businesses to adjust and adapt," said Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee.
There have been calls in parliament to legislate eldercare leave in Singapore in a bid to better support seniors.
MP Henry Kwek has proposed that each Singaporean should get four days of leave a year if they are looking after their parents older than 70 and have fewer than 14 days of annual leave.
Earlier proposals for eldercare leave have met resistance before and the government has simply encouraged employers to have family-friendly policies, such as flexible care leave that would enable workers to care for their children or parents, reported The Straits Times.
Public service agencies currently provide two days of parent care leave per year, according to the
Ministry of Health.
There is no mandatory reporting on the take-up rate of parent care leave across the private sector but according to a survey by the Ministry of Manpower, 19% of employers provided paid parental care leave in 2016, up from 6% in 2008.
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