The Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) welcomes the move to bring such information into the public domain as a practical means of reviewing a company's commitment to hiring older workers, as well as a warning signal of discrimination against them.

Aware would like to encourage the Government to take the opportunity to collect further data from employers with regard to women. Female participation in the labour force in Singapore remains low at 56.6 per cent, compared to 78.2 per cent for males.

There are still very clearly-marked male- and female-dominated industries and occupations; for example, women make up 76 per cent of all clerical workers but only 27.5 per cent of senior officials and manager positions.

This trend is still prevalent despite more women having better qualifications than men. At the same time, there remain worrying differentials in wages between men and women.

The lack of detailed gender-disaggregated data makes it difficult to understand the reasons for these differences. Aware therefore calls on the Government to require companies to provide gender-disaggregated data on applicants as well as employees, including age group, qualification (field of study/work experience), occupation, hours worked and wage.

The data will help shed light on whether industries and employers show preferences based on gender or qualifications or age or a permutation of any of these factors so that it becomes more apparent that employers do pick the best person for the job, regardless of age, gender or even ethnicity.

Constance Singam (Ms)
President
Association of Women for Action and Research