Parental leave will be upgraded from 20 weeks of paid leave to 30 weeks between a couple in two phases from April 1, 2025, in the latest set of support measures for working parents announced at the National Day Rally on Aug 18.
How do a mother’s benefits differ from a father’s? How many more weeks of paid leave does a father stand to get? Do employers have to fork out more for the additional parental leave entitlements? And how do the updated parental leave provisions compare with those of other countries? The Straits Times has the answers.
Q: How significant are the latest round of changes?
A: Rather significant. The shared parental leave scheme has been overhauled such that the number of weeks shared between mother and father no longer eats into the mother’s maternity leave quota, as is currently the case.
Under the current shared parental leave scheme, a working mother will have to give up a maximum of four out of 16 weeks of maternity leave available, if she wants her husband to get more involved.
When the new scheme kicks in from April 1, 2025, mothers will no longer need to make this sacrifice, while fathers who take this shared leave will not have to feel bad that they are eating into the precious time allotted to their wife.
This is because parents will be entitled to six weeks of shared leave from April 1, 2025, and 10 weeks of shared leave from April 1, 2026.
The 10 extra weeks of shared parental leave will grant parents 50 per cent more parental leave days than they now have.
Another change is that two out of the four weeks of a father’s paternity leave entitlement will no longer be voluntary from April 1, 2025. This means employers will be mandated to grant a total of four weeks of government-paid paternity leave, up from two currently.
Q: What is the long and short for a dual-income couple looking to have a baby?
A: Mothers can go on their full 16 weeks’ paid maternity leave.
Fathers will be entitled to four weeks of paid paternity leave.
On top of these, the couple can share between them 10 extra weeks of paid parental leave.
The 10 weeks of shared parental leave will, by default, be equally distributed between the two parents.
Fathers and mothers can take their shared parental leave at the same time, although they must use their maternity and paternity leave before tapping the shared parental leave.
These existing requirements still apply: The child must be a Singapore citizen. Fathers who wish to take paternity leave must be lawfully married to the mother of the child. All leave must also be consumed within the first 12 months of the child’s birth.
“Working parents” are defined as those who have served their employer for a continuous period of at least three months before their child’s birth. Self-employed individuals are also counted, as long as they were engaged in work for at least three continuous months before the child is born.