The People’s Action Party (PAP) Women’s Wing plans to advocate for increased financial support for parents beyond the first seven years of their children’s lives, as well as enhanced childcare-related leave, following extensive public consultations across Singapore.

Since May, the Women’s Wing has conducted a series of six engagement sessions to gather community feedback on measures to support marriage and parenthood. The latest session, held on July 26 at Junction 8 mall, drew around 120 participants including families, who discussed challenges related to family life while taking part in activities such as balloon sculpting and face painting.

PAP Women’s Wing vice-chairwoman Gan Siow Huang said consistent concerns raised during the sessions by over 500 attendees, including men, centered on the financial costs, time constraints, and health implications of raising children. She noted that while the Baby Bonus Scheme, introduced in 2001, helps parents manage expenses in their children’s early years, many parents expressed a need for aid beyond this period.

Gan also highlighted the difficulties working parents face in balancing family care with professional responsibilities. “Those with more and older children tend not to have enough childcare leave,” she said, emphasizing the group’s call for enhanced child-related leave provisions. She acknowledged that employers bear costs when providing such leave and suggested the Government could assist employers to better support working parents.

Another issue raised was the stigma that some working parents encounter when taking leave for family matters. Gan expressed hope that Singaporean workplaces would become more family-friendly, enabling parents to juggle their commitments without fear of negative perceptions.

In response to trends of later marriages and rising infertility rates, the PAP Women’s Wing also intends to urge the Government to lower the cost of fertility screening and treatment, aiming to ease access for couples seeking medical assistance to conceive.

The feedback collected from these sessions will inform the Women’s Wing’s formal recommendations, which are scheduled for submission to the Government’s inter-agency Marriage and Parenthood Reset Workgroup by early 2027. This workgroup, announced during the February Budget debate and chaired by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah, is tasked with addressing Singapore’s declining fertility rate, which reached a record low of 0.87 in 2025.