Hong Kong ‘should learn from Singapore’ on childcare, minister says
Singapore and Hong Kong have threats of facing an increasing shrinkage of the workforce: ageing population. To tackle the issues which are expected to kick in by 2022, both countries are actively taking up measures to counteract the effects of the ageing population. The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Hong Kong, Dr Law Chi-kwong said adopting Singaporean strategies will help ease the effects of impending manpower shortage.
Singapore’s approach on the issue is that of solving gender inequality. As per 2016, the women’s labour force participation rate in Hong Kong was 54.8 per cent and 68.6 per cent for that of men (13.8 percentage points above woman’s). In 2017, 61 per cent of the male workforce was economically inactive as due to retirement while 39.8 per cent of the female workforce’s reason for being economically inactive was the responsibility of household duties. Dr law also acknowledged the fact that the difficulties of childbirth has imposed great restrictions on women’s ability to work, significantly reducing the female population size by 7.9 per cent.
In his weekly blog, Dr Law mentioned that over the past 20 years, there has been a rising trend in women becoming better educated and increasing their share of the labour force, with a 13 percent increase in managerial positions held by women from 20 per cent in 1996. To support this upward trend, Hong Kong is adapting the strategies that Singapore has put in place. Singapore’s Early Childhood Development Agency is revamping schemes to keep fees low and improve the quality of programmes at childcare centres. To Quote Dr Law, Hong Kong aims to do the same by “making an effort in finding the right venues and fighting for more resources, and our goal is to increase the number of childcare places”. By improving public childcare, parents will be more inclined to choose working over looking after their children. This will allow the country to tap deeper into its manpower resource and at the same time comply with the principle of gender equality.
Author: Manivannan Devendran, Member of APQ Global Research Fellowship