{"id":79371,"date":"2026-08-25T13:14:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=79371"},"modified":"2026-08-25T13:14:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:14:00","slug":"commentary-ndr-2026-non-parents-shouldnt-be-default-substitutes-for-parents-on-childcare-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=79371","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: NDR 2026 &#8211; non-parents shouldn\u2019t be default substitutes for parents on childcare leave"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<h2><span lang=\"EN-US\">EXPECTATIONS MAY EXTEND BEYOND CHILDCARE LEAVE<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">The policy may also change what employees expect from their workplaces. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has said employers should support parents so that becoming one does not become a career disadvantage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Yet having an entitlement and feeling able to use it are different things. Parents may hesitate if they expect taking leave to burden colleagues or affect how managers view their commitment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">If childcare leave becomes easier to use in practice, employees may update their expectations about what workplaces should accommodate more broadly. A worker caring for an ageing parent may need flexibility. Parents of older children still face unexpected caregiving demands.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">This does not require a new leave category for every circumstance. It does mean employers have more decisions to make about how much flexibility to provide without repeatedly shifting extra work onto others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Employers form expectations too. If they expect parents to be difficult to accommodate, that belief can shape hiring, promotion or task assignment. While government reimbursement reduces the direct cost of expanded childcare leave, better work design reduces the operational hurdles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">If firms build greater substitutability into teams and managers distribute coverage fairly, parents can use childcare leave with less concern about burdening colleagues or hurting their careers. This sends a signal to other employees too: that taking time off for caregiving responsibilities need not impose an unfair burden on any one colleague.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Expanded childcare leave can therefore do more than add days off. Paired with better work design, it can shift how workplaces accommodate caregiving more broadly, making short, unexpected absences easier for everyone to manage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span lang=\"EN-US\">Chua Yeow Hwee is an Assistant Professor in Economics at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is also the Deputy Director of the Economic Growth Centre at NTU. The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not represent the views and opinions of the institutions that he is in.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/commentary\/ndr-2026-childcare-leave-employer-employee-parent-singles-6339076\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EXPECTATIONS MAY EXTEND BEYOND CHILDCARE LEAVE The policy may also change what employees expect from their workplaces. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has said employers should&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--flcHQMqD--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2024\/06\/20\/office%20workers%20CBD%20singapore%202.jpg?itok=JsDhEF-R","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25334,1126,14649,727,28779,28884,112,1358,28885],"class_list":["post-79371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-childcare","tag-commentary","tag-default","tag-leave","tag-ndr","tag-nonparents","tag-parents","tag-shouldnt","tag-substitutes","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}