HIS homemaker wife wants to work but hydraulic consultant C. Nadarajah is dead set against it.

"My kids are still of school-going age, and if both my wife and I are out at work, who's going to take care of their daily needs and make sure they wake up on time for classes in the morning?" says the 52-year-old.

They have two daughters, aged 19 and 17, and a 16-year-old son.

He says his wife wants to get a job now that the children are older.

But he retorts: "I don't buy that as a reasoning, because there's nothing better than having a mother around to bring up the kids. If she's out at work, and I'm out of town, the kids will go haywire."

Mr Nadarajah does have a valid concern.

However, husbands like him, who object to their wives returning to work, are just one major obstacle the Government has to contend with in its push to attract more women back to work.

Labour MP Halimah Yacob raised it during the recent Parliament debate on the Budget when she related how an angry husband warned a human resource director against hiring his wife.

She is unsure how prevalent this attitude is.

But the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) deputy secretary-general, who heads a committee to get women back to work, tells Insight: "I have heard enough for me to raise it publicly for discussion.

"It is a delicate matter that women often find difficult to discuss in the family especially...where decisions are often made by the husband and the women do not have any influence."

But men are not the only stumbling block.

Women, too, hold themselves back, weighed down by several worries.

One is whether flexible work options and greater childcare support are available so that they can juggle family and job demands.

Another is the fear that their skills have gone rusty as they have been jobless for too long.

Yet others are at a loss in finding a job they want.

What can be done to help these women, most of whom are housewives or retirees, rejoin the workforce?

Counting them in

FIRST, a look at their numbers: 538,200.

These are "economically inactive" women aged 25 and above who are not even looking for a job.

If they can be cajoled back into the workforce, these women can help the economy in two ways: ease the labour crunch by filling the record number of new jobs created, and reduce the heavy reliance on foreign workers.

At the same time, it will also address the increasingly important social concern over their retirement savings.

By staying jobless, many face the prospect of a bleak future, especially older ones from low-income families.

And with women tending to live longer than men, the need for an adequate nest egg becomes even more urgent.

A recent government survey found that one in three women mid-lifers has never held a job and the 2007 Report On Singapore's Labour Force identifies three main reasons.

They are: housework, poor health and raising children.

Few will dispute the merit of staying home to care for the children and home.

But, as sociologist Jennifer Jarman from the National University of Singapore puts it: "The question that many will have to answer is whether the financial, social and personal rewards for working outweigh the costs of that kind of work."

Many concerns

GETTING women back to work is an issue that has preoccupied Singapore for more than a decade.

In 1997, the Government set up a Back To Work Advisory Committee to look into, among other things, the kinds of incentives that will motivate employers to introduce flexi-work arrangements, including part-time work, job-sharing and home-based work.

Two years earlier, a government report found that women were more likely to drop out of the labour force after marriage and childbirth.

Many do not return, unlike in Japan and South Korea where most women will do so when their children are older. In the United States and Britain, most women continue to work even after becoming mothers.

The reasons the Singapore mothers give range from the paucity of suitable jobs near their homes and limited part-time working arrangements to lack of the required qualifications or skills.

The concerns are no different today and can be blamed for Singapore lagging behind the developed nations in getting more women to work.

The participation rate of women in its labour force rose from 49.5 per cent in 1997 to 54.3 per cent last year but it is still lower than the rates in the United States, Australia and Hong Kong, which are around 60 per cent.

The slack is among married women. Last year's official figures show the rate of single women is almost on par with that of single men, but with married women, it is 55.8 per cent, compared to married men's 85.1 per cent.

To reduce the gap, the Tripartite Workgroup On Enhancing Employment Choices For Women was set up last year.

Headed by Madam Halimah, it aims to get 2,000 non-working women back into the workforce.

"Our aim is not to get every single economically inactive woman back to work."

It is "not practical as there are many who are happy to be homemakers and whose family circumstances allow them to do so", she says.

Her committee's goal is to make it easier for those who need jobs to find employment.

Most of these women tell her they want to do it to supplement the family income and provide for their old age.

"Many find that when their children are older, they are freed from the time-consuming physical demands of childcaring. But, at the same time, there is a greater financial demand on the family because the children are in college, poly or university," Madam Halimah explains.

"As the cost of living escalates, a dual-income family has become a necessity in many households," she adds.

Just take Madam Ang Sok Hoon, 38, whose husband has cancer and earns $500 a month as an odd-job labourer.

The mother of four children, aged four to 13, stopped work 10 years ago to care for the children. Now, she desperately wants a job.

"My husband's health is still poor and he can't work that often, so I need to find a job soon. Otherwise, I'm not sure how we are going to survive," she says.

Her journey back to work is one of necessity.

But others, like stay-at-home mum Lee Mei Chen, 35, want to be career mums.

"It's better for me not to be cooped up at home. I feel more balanced with a job," says the mother of two children, aged six months and six.

Three approaches

WHAT more can be done for these keen-to-work women? Insight describes three possible approaches.

>> Know what women want - and meet their needs.

One sticking point will always be the tussle between work and family.

Hence, most women want jobs near their homes, and with flexible work options so that they can still take care of their children, says a spokesman for the Workforce Development Agency (WDA).

The agency collated data from the five Community Development Councils (CDCs) which offer employment assistance.

But not all employers who offer part-time jobs have family-friendly hours, the spokesman added.

Stay-at-home mum Anni Varghese, 52, knows it only too well.

She has been to three job fairs in the past six months, and all the employers she spoke to required shift duty at night.

MP Cynthia Phua also called for greater childcare support by lowering childcare and student-care fees.

She estimates that even with government subsidies, monthly fees for childcare and student-care services are around $500 and $300 respectively.

"It doesn't make sense for a woman with three children to work in a $1,500-a-month job, when she has to fork out roughly the same amount just to give her children quality support in her absence," she says.

>> Change attitudes - for example, of husbands who forbid their wives from working.

MPs have heard of such anecdotal stories from their residents.

Mr Ang Mong Seng (Hong Kah GRC), says: "The traditional nan zhu wai, nu zhu nei (which translates to "men are the breadwinners while women are the homemakers") mentality still persists among some older Chinese men.

"Their thinking is, 'If the job doesn't pay much, why should I, as a man, ask my wife to go out and toil in the working world?'"

Madam Ho Geok Choo (West Coast GRC) observes that men whose mothers were housewives tend to object to their spouses working when they start their own families.

"They (the men) have personally experienced the benefits of having a mother's devoted love and concern, and hope that their wives can do the same for their children," she says.

It is not an easy issue to tackle as it is seen to be a private family matter.

Social workers and MPs believe that open discussions can coax such husbands to change their ways.

But, they add, such attitudes appear to be on the decline with more men showing greater willingness to help with housework.

Take the case of Madam Pang Kim Hong. The 41-year-old, who stopped work 13 years ago, recently landed a job as a service crew member at a McDonald's outlet in West Coast Park.

"My husband and mother take turns to take care of my younger boy when I'm at work, and I'm grateful for that," she says.

>> Lavish them with the right attention - equip them with the right skills and job.

As most of these women have left the workforce for some time, they need help to keep their skills up to date.

One recent initiative is the Women Enterprise Workz which will help low-income Singaporean women aged 18 and older to work from home.

The cooperative will match women with courses that also train them on how to sell their products. The courses range from candle-making to hairdressing, with needy women paying a subsidised fee.

After training, the cooperative will help them find customers. For instance, women making handicraft will get free space at Ikea Tampines and Great World City to sell their wares.

With more of such creative initiatives in place, more women should be able to work - be it in an office or at home.

Perhaps, even Mr Nadarajah's wife could find work - without leaving the home.

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