Childcare leave is increasing. Who’s picking up the work?

When Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced more childcare leave at the 2026 National Day Rally, the change sounded straightforward: give parents more time to care for their children. 

Under the proposed scheme, each eligible working parent with a Singapore Citizen child aged 12 or below would receive eight days a year for one child, 10 for two, or 12 for three or more. 

Online, the conversation quickly turned to the people still at work. In one Reddit discussion,a commenter recounted having to take on extra duties while colleagues were on maternity, paternity and childcare leave, expressing frustration that single employees were often overlooked in workplace policies. Others argued that the issue was not parents taking leave, but employers failing to provide sufficient manpower to cover their absence.

These are individual reactions, but they capture the question behind the heated posts. When someone takes leave, who carries the work? And what if it’s always people without children? 

Is covering for a parent always a burden? 

For Alice, a public servant, covering a colleague on childcare leave has usually meant handling an urgent matter for a day. The colleague picks up the rest on returning, and her bosses have helped with cover too.

“It just feels like give-and-take and part of normal teamwork, where I cover for my teammate who is out and they cover for me next time,” she says. 

Alice’s experience points to a distinction that can get lost in the online debate. Stepping in for a teammate need not be unfair. It only becomes difficult if the same person repeatedly stays late or finds their own deadlines slipping. 

“Employers need to build enough manpower buffer so that covering for a colleague is just normal teamwork, not a burden causing the remaining team to do overtime,” she says. “Set the right expectations, for example who covers who for which responsibilities.”

Jia Hui, who works in marketing for an IT company, supports the increase in childcare leave even though she does not have children. She sees it as a step towards a working life with room for things beyond the office.

“The increased leave helps Singapore progress,”she says. “Sometimes we look at other countries in Scandinavia and Europeans and want the work life balance there. How can we achieve work-life balance here if our entire energy is at work?”

She also thinks an extra assignment could offer someone seeking career growth a chance to take on visible work. That possibility, though, depends on the work being recognised and on the employee having a say in taking it on.

The struggles of working parents 

Vivian, a preschool educator with a young child, welcomes the additional leave. 

“I can also empathise with employees who do not have children and feel that they are on the losing end of this arrangement,” she says. “It’s a dilemma because supporting working parents shouldn’t come at the expense of other employees.”

For Vivian, planned absences at her workplace are arranged with help from a team of teachers who handle operations. For urgent leave, she and her colleagues must work out the cover themselves.

Even when a replacement is arranged, the covering teacher usually has a class of their own and can only pop in to conduct the main lesson. The teacher taking leave must also prepare lesson plans, materials and details about the children’s routines and allergies. The absence creates work on both sides.

Vivian also admits to feeling guilty when having to take last-minute leave. “Manpower is already quite tight, so a last-minute leave will usually mean a scramble to find someone who is available to cover,” she says. 

She and her husband try to split childcare duties: his more flexible workplace makes it easier for him to take urgent days, while she tends to take leave for planned events or later days of their child’s medical leave. 

For Jessica, a public servant and fellow working parent, she has found support from her colleagues. People with and without children have covered for her, and she has covered for other parents in turn. 

“We should be able to support each other regardless of whether we have children,” she says. “That feels much healthier than turning flexibility into a competition between different groups of employees.” 

Her experience also challenges the assumption that a parent away from the office has simply handed over all their work.To fulfill her responsibilities, Jessica sometimes opens her laptop after her child is asleep when she has taken childcare leave. 

“I think that’s an important part of the conversation –flexibility doesn’t always mean less work or responsibility,” she says. 

Jessica adds,”That does not mean parents should always have to make up every hour. There needs to be a reasonable balance rather than an expectation that parents should compensate for every absence.”

What can workplaces do to ensure fairness?

Derrick Teo, CEO of manpower consultancy firm Elitez Group, says frustration often starts when the same few employees absorb every absence. 

“That’s not a childcare leave problem but a manpower planning problem,” he says. “My advice to employers is: don’t make your employees solve your manpower problem for you.”

Managers need to consider what actually needs to be done before a colleague on leave returns. Some tasks are urgent and others can wait. 

For essential work, he advises looking at skills and capacity, rotating cover and adjusting the covering employee’s other priorities.  “Don’t automatically give it to the single employee or the person without children,” he advises.

He adds, “You don’t want to tell a parent that because they’re taking childcare leave, colleagues have to cover for them. That immediately creates guilt on one side and resentment on the other.The manager should own the problem: You take the leave you need. We’ll manage the work.”

Derrick also highlights the Government’s announcement that it will reimburse employers for the full duration of statutory child-related leave, up to the applicable limits. 

“MOM specifically said this is intended to help employers bring in additional manpower rather than relying only on colleagues to absorb the work,” says Derrick. 

For lean teams, Derrick suggests cross-training staff and building a pool of part-timers or freelancers where possible.

If employees feel overwhelmed with extra work, they should raise the issue without making it a complaint about a parent. They could tell their manager examples of the duties added, how often they arise and which deadlines are affected, then ask them to review priorities. 

“Temporary cover should have an expiry date,” he says. “If it continues for months, the team’s workload needs another look.”

He adds that a fair system has three things: visibility, rotation and recognition. People should know why they are covering, the same person shouldn’t always be doing it, and extra contribution shouldn’t become invisible.