PAP POLICYMAKERS, MPs and Women’s Wing leaders worked tirelessly to lighten the load for Singaporean women in 2025
The PAP Women’s Wing and Budget 2025 addressed challenges facing women in every season of life, while PAP MPs took positive action to address caregiving responsibilities that disproportionately fall on women.
PAP Women’s Wing advocates for four vital areas
The PAP Women’s Wing (WW) continued addressing the challenges which face women in Singapore. For 2025 and beyond, the WW has been leading advocacy in four key areas: Careers & Leadership, Health & Well-being, Safety & Respect and Seasons of Life.
“It is actually a value and a right in the Singapore society that we want to be in,” stated Branch Chair Bernadette Giam (Sengkang GRC). BC Giam heads the Safety & Respect advocacy group.
“When every woman in Singapore feels respected and secure, not just families will be thriving. Our communities will grow stronger. And this is something we very much want to advocate for in the Women’s Wing, together with all our Women’s Wing activists,” she continued.
The WW’s advocacy involves presenting policies and programmes for the Government to consider. It also works with external stakeholders such as Non-Governmental Organisations, academics, community partners and industry experts — creating whole-of-society change which empowers Singapore’s women.
Find out more about the PAP Women’s Wing here.
Budget 2025 helped lighten the load for women
Budget 2025 helped lighten the load for Singaporeans, with women getting much needed help.
It includes launching 19,600 BTO flats across Singapore, which helped newlyweds set up their home and family.
For mums, the Large Families Scheme gives up to $16,000 of support to families with 3 or more children. This adds to the existing $5,000 First Step grant for all newborns.
And senior women with low incomes have renewed help for healthcare expenses. The new Matched MediSave Scheme has the PAP Government matching every $1 topped up in their MediSave accounts, for up to $1,000 a year.
The landmark Workplace Fairness Bill protects women’s careers
Fair employment practices are becoming a legal necessity for employers. The PAP Government passed the landmark Workplace Fairness Bill (WFB) in January (and related laws in November), and these protections will take full effect by end-2027.
The WFB protects age, sex, marital status, pregnancy and caregiving responsibilities. It gives women in Singapore’s workforce extra certainty and extra protection from unjust dismissal.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has found that many employees who experience discrimination do not seek help. The WFB legislates grievance-handling processes for such disputes.
For complaints that do not come under the list of protected characteristics, TGFEP (Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices) guidelines will continue to cover all other forms of workplace discrimination.
“I would like to reiterate to all employees: if you are facing workplace discrimination, MOM and TAFEP will support you. You will not be turned away simply because it is not a protected characteristic,” said Minister for Manpower Dr Tan See Leng (08 Jan).
PAP MPs take action for caregivers
Women often disproportionately bear responsibilities for caregiving , and our PAP MPs are taking action to ease it for them.
At neighbourhood level, MPs like Vikram Nair (Sembawang GRC) have welcomed a new mega childcare centre to Admiralty, while Liang Eng Hwa (Bukit Panjang SMC) has opened a sixth Active Ageing Centre in his town.
In Parliament, MPs Hany Soh (Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC) and Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim (Chua Chu Kang GRC) delivered a Motion on “Supporting Singaporeans and Raising Families” (5 Feb), where they called for additions to the new Shared Parental Leave Scheme, and for more fathers to take part in child-raising alongside mothers.
Meanwhile, the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Social and Family Development is advocating for social service professionals. This includes making sure that the needs for such professionals are met with adequate staffing.
“A key challenge [facing] our sector is manpower,” said GPC Chairperson Xie Yao Quan (MP for Jurong Central SMC) when Petir interviewed him. “We want to be a voice for professionals, whether it is their professional development, salaries, caring for them as they care for others, or preventing burnout.”
All these actions by our MPs strengthen the caregiving network in Singapore for women, at all seasons of life.
