Pregnant women in the workplace deserve better: Opinion

Source: Straits Times
Article Date: 20 May 2025

From pay cuts to unjust dismissals, pregnancy can still derail a woman's career. The Workplace Fairness Act does not go far enough in preventing discrimination, say the authors.

Jenny (not her real name) was undergoing a probationary period at work when she found out she was pregnant. She did not want to disclose this to her employer, but had no choice when she experienced complications requiring time off.

After she returned to work, her employer fired her a day before her three-month probation was to end. She was not given any reason, and her employer docked her pay for the medical leave she took.

Another worker, Anne (not her real name), applied for a job and was granted an interview. While filling out a form for this, she noticed that a health examination was required. Given that she was pregnant, she could not undergo the required X-ray examination.

Anne e-mailed the company to say she was pregnant and asked for more information about the examination. The company ghosted her.

Jenny and Anne are not isolated cases. They are among hundreds of women who sought help from the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) for discrimination and harassment as a result of pregnancy.

Discrimination against expectant mothers in the workplace is a reality in Singapore and is often treated as part and parcel of the workplace culture.

Apart from the fact that pregnancy discrimination is manifestly unfair, as a nation we are also facing a seriously low total fertility rate.

We should be looking at how we can make bolder systemic changes that support parents in growing their families. This has to start with how pregnant women are treated in the workplace, in the home, and in society at large.

Eradicating discrimination against pregnant women

No woman should have to choose between her job and having children, but this is the reality when discrimination and harassment continue in our workplaces today.

The Workplace Fairness Act (WFA) was passed this year. When it comes into effect in 2026/2027, it will prohibit employment decisions that discriminate against pregnant women. However, the WFA falls short of fully protecting pregnant women.

The WFA applies only to a limited set of employment decisions: hiring, appraising, promoting, reducing employees’ rank or status, training, dismissing, retrenching and terminating the contract of employees.

This excludes a host of employment decisions that regularly affect pregnant employees, such as docking their salaries, giving them lower or higher workloads without their consent, and reducing their bonuses. These are noteworthy concerns.

Indeed, the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) Fair Employment Practices 2023 report confirmed that salary, workload distribution and bonus were listed as the top three most common forms of discrimination, at 43.4 per cent, 33.7 per cent and 26.8 per cent, respectively.

Aware recommends that a wider range of employment decisions be covered under the WFA, including the ones identified by the MOM.

Since the WFA has not come into effect, women like Jenny and Anne have no other option but to rely on the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TGFEP). Complaints of discrimination can be made to the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (Tafep). However, the TGFEP is not law, and there is no legal recourse against an employer who refuses to comply.

In addition, to effectively rely on the WFA or the TGFEP, women need to prove that they have been discriminated against based on their pregnancy.

This seems reasonable, on the face of it. However, in practical terms, it is difficult to prove. Many employers refuse to give a reason, or sometimes give reasons that do not seem genuine.

In another case that Aware saw, Farah (not her real name) was 17 weeks pregnant and had her employment terminated. The reason given was that her position was redundant due to restructuring.

Another fellow pregnant employee similarly had her employment terminated.

In cases like these, it is difficult for employees to prove that their employers discriminated against them on the basis of their pregnancy. Aware calls for the burden of proof to be reversed in favour of pregnant women.

So if a woman’s employment is terminated while she is pregnant, there is a presumption that it was a discriminatory dismissal – and the burden is on the employer to prove there is a valid reason for the termination.

Offer better support for parents

Mothers whose children are Singapore citizens are entitled to 16 weeks of maternity leave.

For the first two children, the Government pays 50 per cent of their pay and the employer bears the rest. However, for the third and subsequent children, the Government bears the full wages for the 16 weeks of maternity leave.

This cost to the employer for the first two children is often glossed over. Such a cost could easily deter employers and be the source of discrimination.

Since it is in the country’s interest that people have children, full government-paid maternity leave should be extended to the first and second children as well.

This means employers not being burdened by the cost of having more children in Singapore.

In addition, it will also encourage more employers to hire temporary covers for employees on maternity leave, if there is no additional cost to the employer in doing so. Such a practice is fairer to existing employees too, rather than asking them to take on the work of the employee on maternity leave and breeding resentment among them – a further source of discrimination.

Policies in countries touted as having the “best practices” for childcare leave by the United Nations Population Fund are instructive to look at.

In Sweden, there is generous parental leave of 240 days per child per parent (and 480 days for single parents). Parental insurance – funded by employers and the self-employed – broadly covers 80 per cent of income for 195 days (or 390 days for single parents) and covers the remaining 45 days (or 90 days for single parents) at a minimum rate.

The leave can be used any time from 60 days before delivery (by the mother only for the pre-delivery period) until the child is 12; but after the age of four, parents have only 96 days per child. This is an excellent gender-equal policy and one that gives equal recognition to single parents, too. We echo our previous calls to equalise maternity and paternity leave – parenting is the equal responsibility of both parents.

The parental policies in Estonia and Slovenia also resonate. They provide unemployed parents with some basic income as parental benefits towards caregiving of their children, especially in infancy.

Time for reasonable accommodations

Reasonable accommodations are often discussed in the context of disability, but they apply to a variety of situations, including pregnancy and caregiving.

For example, pregnant women who are expected to perform certain physical tasks at the workplace should reasonably be given tasks commensurate with their ability during pregnancy.

Accommodations that pregnant employees need for the health and safety of their own bodies, and to some extent that of their unborn child, are reasonable asks. It is important to remember the focus is on what is reasonable in the circumstances, for both employers and employees.

In most developed social democracies, the obligation on employers to provide reasonable accommodations is included within employment Acts or alongside anti-discrimination policies.

The principle behind this is that most anti-discrimination policies – which prohibit employers from choosing not to hire employees with protected characteristics – need to also require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for their employees when they are hired.

In Singapore, the Government has chosen to pass the WFA without a mandatory obligation to provide reasonable accommodations. Instead, the aim is for Tafep to issue guidelines on reasonable accommodations with the hope that all employers will adopt these guidelines. This means that employers are not legally compelled to provide reasonable accommodations.

We hope that Tafep and MOM will track the adoption of the guidelines by employers and will also track how well employers are responding to employees’ needs and providing reasonable accommodations. This will enable the Government to assess earlier rather than later if legislation is required to make it obligatory for employers to provide accommodations that are reasonable.

The Government can also help employers to adopt these guidelines by providing them with grants to put in place the various reasonable accommodations – for example, lactation rooms and refrigerators to store breast milk – and other incentives to encourage adoption of the guidelines, such as tax incentives.

We call for more substantive measures to support mothers in the workplace, at home and in society. This month of May, when we celebrate mothers, it is time we set our sights on good policy that values how precious motherhood is.

Sugidha Nithiananthan is director of advocacy and research at the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware). Adilah Rafey is a research executive there.