White Paper on Singapore Women’s Development: Rachel Ong on retirement adequacy of single women who are caregivers

Retirement adequacy is a big challenge faced by single women who are caregivers for seniors in their family. Many have to cut down or stop work, and limited home ownership options available to singles mean that many will likely not have the option to downgrade their property for retirement income. MP Rachel Ong said this in Parliament on Tuesday (Apr 5). She offered several suggestions. First, allowing the caregiver’s CPF contributions to be supplemented from the CPF of the parent who is receiving care, or to be topped up by siblings. Second, providing a calibrated monthly allowance with CPF contributions to those who have given up work to be caregivers. She also suggested converting childcare leave to a more general family care leave to cover caregivers of parents, particularly singles with limited help. She said the number of family care leave days for such singles should be mandated, not merely encouraged.