"The Glass is A Little More Than Half Full": Opening Speech By President Tharman Shanmugaratnam At The Singapore Council Of Women’s Organisations (SCWO)’s Summit For Action On Gender Equality (SAGE) On 5 September 2024

Ms Sun Xueling, Minister of State, Ministry of Social and Family Development and Ministry of Home Affairs
Dr Seow Yian San, President of SCWO
Ms Junie Foo, Immediate Past President of SCWO
Distinguished guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

1. I am very pleased to be here with you at this inaugural Summit for Action on Gender Equality.

2. It is a platform that will I’m sure throw up ideas and proposals that help us make further progress towards gender equality.

3. But it is also about more than that. It is about how we can build a shared vision of a society that achieves fulfillment collectively. One where every individual can achieve their fullest potential, and contribute fully to society.

4. Let’s first recognise that by most international comparisons, we are not doing badly in Singapore. In the latest UN Human Development Report’s Gender Inequality Index, Singapore ranks 8th - and is the only Asia Pacific country in the top 10 – ie in the top 10 least unequal countries. Our Adjusted Gender Pay Gap - a conventional international measure of gaps between women and men’s pay after taking into account factors such as differences in education and job roles - is about 6 per cent. That’s lower than is found in some other advanced countries like the United States and Canada.

5. It has reflected the remarkable transformation in women’s lives in Singapore over just six decades.

   1. Starting in 1961 with the rights guaranteed women through the Women’s Charter.

   2.  Followed by the development of a national education system that has enabled both girls and boys of all backgrounds to perform better than their peers internationally. And importantly too, has seen girls bucking the international trend by taking STEM subjects in large numbers at least in their school years, and doing well at them.

   3.  It also owes itself to the development of opportunities in our economy, with near full employment being achieved over several decades. Slightly over three out of four women between the ages of 25 and 64 are employed.

   4.  And never forgetting: the streets are safe for girls and women, day and night.  

6. I would add that compared to many other Asian societies, with whom we share similar roots, cultural norms in Singapore around women’s roles have been less resistant to change. The cultural soil of our society has been steadily shifting, especially in response to the growth of opportunities for both men and women.

   1.  While some long-standing attitudes about women’s roles, or how they should look, still prevail

   2.  And gender relations at home are still unequal and certainly not where they should be

   3.  There is little outright bigotry, little outright subjugation of women

   4.  And virtually no expectation that women colleagues at work should be making the tea!  

7. Yet there is still much to be done for us to be a society that is truly inclusive and fulfilling for all. I can say the glass is a little more than half full, but we cannot be satisfied with where we are.

   1.  The glass is close to full when it comes to the legal rights and protections afforded to girls and women.

   2.  The glass is more than half full with regard to the economic empowerment of women, but we must make the workplace more family-friendly and make further gains in women’s representation at senior management levels.

   3.  And the glass does appear less than half full when it comes to gender relations at home and the continuing imbalances in men and women’s domestic responsibilities. 

8. So let me make a few comments on those last two issues, where there is more to be done.

Ensuring women can advance in their careers

9. Family-friendly workplaces, and flexible work arrangements in particular, will be a boost for both women and men.

   1.  It will help them do what it takes to advance in their careers, knowing that they can take care of their children or attend to other care-giving needs when necessary.

   2.  And it is especially needed to give women the choice to return to work after giving birth, and not have to put their careers on a long pause or worry about how this affects their career trajectory.

10. The recent introduction of the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests will help. So will the upcoming Workplace Fairness Legislation, which will better protect employees from discrimination on the basis of characteristics such as sex, pregnancy status, marital status, and caregiving responsibilities.

11. But beyond these important guidelines and legislation, corporate culture has to shift, so that neither women nor men feel discouraged from actually taking advantage of flexible work arrangements. Many leading employers and progressive organisations are setting the pace, but we have more work to do to get buy-in from a broader base of employers.

12. It will help that we have a tight labour market. Employers will I believe come to recognise that supporting flexible arrangements is not just a benefit for women, but will increasingly be a driver for employee retention.

13. But as I mentioned, we also have to do more to strengthen women’s representation at C-suite and senior management levels.

14. A quick word first about some prominent studies that have found that there are financial benefits to companies having better gender diversity in their executive teams. The studies conclude that they outperform less gender-diverse companies financially, and attribute this to gender diverse companies being more innovative, and more likely to make better and bolder decisions.

15. These conclusions have some intuitive appeal, and are what many of us like to see. But having followed this literature for some time, I would caution against making them the basis for the case for women’s participation at senior levels. Academic researchers note that the findings really depend on the methodology and the measures of financial performance used in each study.

16. Fundamentally, we should enable women, and every individual, to advance to the highest level they deserve in each field, because it is the right thing to do.

    1.  It is the right thing to enable every individual to contribute their most, and not hold them back with glass ceilings or broken rungs in the ladder on the way up.

    2.  And it is right to want everyone to achieve their full potential, so that collectively, we gain a greater sense of fulfilment as a society.

    3.  Not all of this can be measured, and not all of it will show up in corporate financial performance. But we know it is worth something.

17. Even Milton Friedman, well known for his belief in free markets and for exhorting companies to maximise the value of the enterprise, declared that they should do so “while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.” Incidentally, I should add that Friedman, one of the two most famous economists of the last century, himself collaborated closely with women economists for a good part of his career.

18. Having said that, it would be wise to stick to a system where people advance on the basis of their merits and what they can contribute. It is the best way for women themselves, so that they advance without feeling they got there merely because they ticked a box on diversity. And it is the best way to avoid breeding resentment among men.

19. But what employers can and should do is to avoid blinkers, and actively encourage women in their careers.

    1.  Pay attention to the full range of abilities that women may bring, and avoid measuring them on only the metrics of achievement that men may be most comfortable with.

    2.  Expose them to role models, those who have already blazed the path or found their own way to shine as leaders.

    3.  And give them exposure during their careers to fields outside of what has been conventional for women in the past - fields that are in fact growing such as in advanced manufacturing and the tech sector, or quantitative finance – and to postings overseas.

    4.  All this is a matter of craft in corporate leadership, not the setting of quotas for women or any other underrepresented group.

More equal partnerships at home

20. This brings me to the second broad area where we know we have some distance to go. We have to shift attitudes and cultivate more equal partnerships between men and women at home - in parenting and caregiving and in household responsibilities.

21. To take a step back - a central challenge we face, like in many other relatively advanced societies, is how we preserve the gains that women have made in the workplace while reversing a decline in fertility rates - or at least stalling the decline.

22. What gives? We should certainly not sacrifice the social progress we have achieved in women participating in the workplace, being able to use their talents and skills at work, and gaining economic security.

23. Flexible work arrangements and a family-friendly workplace will help. So too will the major enhancements to access to affordable and quality preschools.

24. But we know more will have to change if we are to convince young people to get married and to have children.

    1.  An IPS survey found that among young women in particular a significant proportion do not see themselves getting married to begin with.

25. It is a complex problem. But it will surely help make marriage more appealing to women if they do not have to play inordinate roles in raising children and looking after the home, and did not feel that marriage and child-bearing will mean a major sacrifice to their careers and the lifes they want to pursue.

26. A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced the new Shared Parental Leave scheme, which will provide an additional 10 weeks of paid parental leave, shared between both parents. This is in addition to the earlier-announced measures such as doubling of Government-Paid paternity leave. He also made a strong pitch for fathers to take on more responsibilities at home.

27. The need for more equal partnership between men and women at home does look like the elephant in the room.

28. But it is also an opportunity for men themselves to develop a more rounded form of masculinity, and a fuller sense of their identities.

    1.  The neuroscience research shows that when men take fatherhood seriously from the time a child is born, their brains undergo change. They enjoy being with their infants and children more, and eventually even gain in long term brain health.

    2.  And active fatherhood, not surprisingly, yields unique benefits for a child’s development.

29. Civil society can help. The Centre for Fathering, in particular, is doing a good work to help change mindsets and promote active fatherhood among men.

30. We must also continue to address gender stereotypes from young, and help boys develop healthy and respectful attitudes towards girls.

31. We have to take this seriously, and not only because we want to reverse a decline in fertility rates. While women in Singapore generally enjoy a high level of safety, we have unacceptable levels of domestic violence, with women being disproportionately the victims.

32. That’s again a role for fathers, not just mothers – to teach their sons what it means to respect girls and women, and to speak up against behaviour that is harmful to women.

33. Here too, civil society is an important partner in the journey - to build a society where men and women have respectful relationships, and full and equal opportunities to flourish.

    1.  Such as United Women Singapore, which runs a “Boys Empowered” progrmme that creates a safe space for males to have conversations on healthy masculinity. It also equips them with skills to de-escalate and prevent situations of violence.

Government and Civil Society must partner each other

34. Advancing women’s progress and gender equality will always be an ongoing effort. It is one that requires a steady engagement and partnership between Government and civil society.

    1.  Civil society organisations occupy a unique position in society. Their networks in the community, and often among corporates, enable them to mobilise role models, and skills and other resources for the cause of empowering girls and women.

    2.  They are also well-suited to think about emerging challenges, such as online harms, and to be early responders.

35. I am encouraged that SCWO and its active constituent members are taking the lead in this effort.

36. By working together to create equal opportunities at work and equal partnerships at home, by challenging stereotypes, and indeed by helping both men and women find their fuller selves, we can lay the foundation for a more vibrant, resilient and collectively fulfilling society.