Since 1960, Singapore's aim in its national development agenda was to create conditions in which multinational corporations (MNCs) could be wooed to the country's shores to invest in its fledgling labour-intensive manufacturing industries. Soon there was a burgeoning of job opportunities especially for cheap low-skilled labour that came to be filled mostly by women. While in the 1960s, one out of five women was working, the female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) continued to rise steadily to reach 44 percent by 1980. Since then, the female labour force participation rate has only gradually increased: in 1990, it was 50.7 percent, in 2000, 52.6 percent, and in 2010, 56.7 percent. While an expansion in job opportunities was a critical factor for women's increased participation rates over those years, changing attitudes towards work outside the home has also been instrumental as a push factor for Singaporean women to gain strides in the economic sphere. Moreover, the slow but gradual rise in the cost of living has also meant that engaging in wage work has become inevitable among growing numbers of women, with the dual-career couple becoming the norm and supplanting the male breadwinner model.

Noteworthy is that from the start in Singapore's march towards development, women have been recognized as equal partners to men, and the leadership of the country at that time was cognizant of the importance of addressing women's rights in several domains. The first area in which gender equality had to be ensured was within marriage, leading to the promulgation of the Singapore Women's Charter in 1961. In addition to ensuring monogamy within marriage, the charter was a momentous legal instrument, according rights to women in the areas of property ownership and divorce settlements.

In spite of Singaporean women having achieved a considerable degree of gender equality in these spheres as well as having gained strides in the economic arena, an obvious inequality persists in the family: cultural norms continue to ascribe the primary role of caregiving to the woman. In this regard, men are rarely found to take on the role of caregiver even when their wives have a full-time job.