The government has announced that a second week of paternity leave will be legislated, and will take effect from 2017. Under the new legislation, fathers of Singapore Citizen babies born on or after 1 Jan 2017 will enjoy 2 weeks of government-funded paternity leave. This leave is in addition to childcare leave (6 days) and unpaid infant care leave (6 days).
Other changes include:
- Shared parental leave – increased from one week to four weeks for children born on or after 1 Jun 2017. This leave is shared from teh mother’s maternity leave
- Adoption leave – mothers will have 12 weeks (up from 4 weeks currently) of adoption leave for children below one year old. This applies to adoptions after 1 Jul 2017. Fathers may share up to 4 weeks from the mother’s adoption leave.
The government will fund the leaves as follows:
- shared parental leave – fully funded
- paternity leave – fully funded
- adoption leave – 8 weeks funded by government, 4 weeks funded by the employer [for the first 2 children only]. The government will fund the full 12 weeks for the 3rd and subsequent adoptions.
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