Creating innovative and impactful business partnerships with positive impact is part of what SwedCham, as a business community, does to contribute towards a more sustainable future. With innovative partnerships being a specific goal in the global sustainability agenda, we feel we have a duty and an opportunity to show that the business community can be a force for good. Gender equality is something that the Nordic community is well known for. Sweden, in fact, has a feminist foreign policy. With Singapore celebrating the year of the woman, we thought it would be an excellent opportunity to tap into the conversation taking place on the ground. With the conversation around gender equality being predominantly led by women, we thought it would be interesting to shift away from the perception that Women’s Rights are only a “women’s issue” and decided to hear what men had to say.

We set out to gather over 100 perspectives mainly from men, but also focused on capturing the voices of both, men and women, of all walks of life and multiple generations. With over 100 views on women and gender equality, this project provides a critical mass of insight into how our perceptions around women and gender balance are changing and it’s pretty inspiring. This is what #candid is all about. It’s even more exciting that the collection of stories mobilised the partners to go even further. Once we got a sense of how gender norms are changing, it was clear that workplaces could collectively take concrete action to make a difference. This is how the #doubleup #paternityleave pledge was born. #Doubleup is a collective commitment by a group of companies to double the paid paternity leave benefits in Singapore together with an open call to the broader business community to join in.

We are incredibly proud to be launching an initiative that will make us more competitive employers. We trust that it will be good for business and make a difference in the lives of families.