The government will retain income criteria for child benefits for families with three or more children, despite calls from MPs and social organisations for their abolition, the House labour committee heard on Tuesday.

Speaking after the meeting, committee chairman and Akel MP Giorgos Koukoumas criticised the government’s refusal to accept proposed amendments to the child benefit bill.

“The government made it clear today that it will not listen to parliament, large families, families with three children, single parents, trade unions or the Commissioner for Children’s Rights,” he said.

Although the bill includes some improvements, Koukoumas argued that it falls far short of meeting the needs of modern families, particularly single-parent households, which he said would see little benefit from the proposed changes.

He also accused President Nikos Christodoulides of failing to honour election pledges to improve support for single parents and abolish income and property criteria for larger families, including those with dependent university students.

According to Koukoumas, the proposed increases in child benefits amount to just €60 annually, or €5 per month per child, for one category of recipients, and €27 annually, or less than €2.50 per month, for another.

Drawing comparisons with other European countries, Koukoumas said Germany provides €255 per month per child without income criteria, Luxembourg offers benefits starting at €300, and Poland provides €185, while the maximum monthly benefit in Cyprus currently stands at €49 and could rise to around €53 or €54.

He also criticised the government’s rejection of a mechanism to automatically adjust income thresholds annually in line with inflation.

Koukoumas said Cyprus spends less than one per cent of its GDP on family and child support, less than half the European average. He cited annual per capita spending of €277 in Cyprus compared with an EU average of €830.

He called for budget surpluses to be redirected towards households struggling with the cost of living rather than being retained by the government.

Meanwhile, Diko MP Andreas Apostolou welcomed the proposed legislation as a step towards extending financial support to several thousand additional families through child benefits and nursery subsidies, but said further improvements were necessary.

“Child benefit is the state’s most targeted policy for supporting families, which are the foundation of a country,” he said, describing family support as a national duty.

Apostolou called for a larger budget and higher income thresholds, particularly as the number of children in a household increases.

He argued that income criteria for large families should either be abolished or raised substantially, while university students should continue to count as dependent children when calculating eligibility.

Apostolou also announced that the social welfare deputy ministry had formally accepted his proposal to allow Cypriot families returning from abroad to apply for child benefits from their first day back in Cyprus.

Apostolou added that Diko, as a party supporting the government, had a particular responsibility to secure further improvements for families and young couples.

He said the party had already included additional proposals to expand the child benefit scheme among its suggested amendments to the 2027 state budget.

It's relentless. Newspapers run stories declaring the glorious liberation of mid-life divorce while Hollywood and Netflix get in on the act. Why are we all being encouraged to break up our families, asks Joanna Gray.

The post Why Are We All Being Encouraged to Get Divorced? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

• Nike CEO Elliott Hill said he schedules his personal and family time on his calendar.
• When he's not traveling, he follows a structured routine.
• He said his early workdays did not stop him from finding time for his kids.

Nike CEO Elliott Hill said he protects family time by scheduling them like work commitments.

Hill, who came out of retirement to lead Nike in 2024, said he follows a structured routine when he is not traveling.

"What time I try to get to sleep, what time I try to wake up. I get a workout in every morning, too. That helps keep me grounded and keeps me balanced," Hill told host Greg Byrne on the "You Got Byrned" podcast.

He said he makes a point of identifying what matters most to him and scheduling time for those priorities.

"I sat down, and I actually listed what was important to me: family, friends, my own personal — and then work — growth, and I put commitments underneath each one of those, and then I built them into my calendar," Hill said.

For example, he said he knew his work schedule meant he would miss his two kids before they headed to school, so he found other ways to show up for them.

"I knew I wasn't ever going to be there for breakfast with the kids because I was an early bird, and I was going to be in the office," Hill said. "But I did say I'm going to be home for dinner, and I had my admin build it into my calendar so that I would leave in time to be home for dinner."

He also blocks off parent-teacher conferences and other school events on his schedule, and said he would shift work trips when they overlap with those commitments.

"It all comes down to being very deliberate about what's important to us. Writing it on a piece of paper was very, very helpful, and then being planful enough to build it into your calendar. That's how I've always managed the balance," Hill said.

Hill joined Nike as a sales representative intern in 1988 and spent more than three decades in the company in a range of roles. He retired in 2020 after leading Nike's commercial and marketing operations, then returned in 2024 as CEO.

Other business leaders have also shared the systems and habits they rely on to stay organized.

Leah Solivan, a venture capitalist and the founder of TaskRabbit, told Business Insider in April that she uses six color-coded calendars to stay on top of her day.

The cofounder and CEO of Fishwife, Becca Millstein, told Business Insider in September that she does not hold company meetings without a written agenda.

Allie K. Miller, the CEO of Open Machine, told Business Insider in early October that she'll take regular "Claude walks," during which she'll walk for an hour while talking to AI or taking a call.

• Viaano Spruyt first became a caregiver as a teenager when his father fell ill.
• After his father died, he moved to Australia to study and build a life there.
• Three years later, he returned home to be closer to family after his mother's health scare.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Viaano Spruyt, 29, founder of Huddle, an AI-powered social network for fandoms. He is based in Singapore. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I first became a caregiver when I was a teenager.

My dad had an incurable respiratory disease, and he was on an oxygen tank every day. He would get breathless after walking for just a few minutes and needed help with day-to-day living.

Back then, my mom was the sole breadwinner for the family, and my sister was too young to grasp what was going on.

As the oldest child and only son, I took responsibility for his daily care. I fed him his meals and brought him to appointments at hospitals around Singapore.

He passed away when I was 19. Several years later, when I was 22, I moved to the Gold Coast in Australia on a scholarship. I earned my bachelor's in psychology, the first step toward my ambition to become a clinical psychologist.

Over the next three years, I built a real life in Australia.

I had assimilated into the culture, was in a serious relationship, and was set to pursue a master's degree. I was also in the process of applying for permanent residency.

My family was always in the back of my mind. Still, I wanted to experience life outside Singapore, and I was in the midst of building the future I thought I would have.

The call that changed everything

Then one day, I was reminded what it meant to be so far from home.

My mom was walking to catch a bus to work when her knees suddenly gave way. She kept calling me for help, but I'd missed her calls.

Unable to walk, she ended up sitting alone, crying for hours. A kind stranger eventually called for help, and she was taken to a local hospital. She was wheelchair-bound for the next few weeks. Later, she told me she wished I'd been there.

My mom is now 61 and has advanced osteoarthritis in both knees, with severe cartilage loss, meniscus damage, and joint degeneration.

When I asked why she had called me rather than my younger sister, my mom said she didn't want to distract my sister from her final exams and internship. Still, I was the first person she thought to call for help, even from thousands of miles away.

That was the exact moment I knew I had to come home.

Seeing what happened to my mom brought me back to when my dad was ill. I didn't want to be on the other side of the world when my mom was dealing with a health issue.

It wasn't just my mom. My grandparents, now in their 80s, were also getting older, and I realized my family needed me.

I came home and started over

After my mom's incident, I gave up the plans I'd made in Australia and moved back to Singapore in 2022. That was probably the hardest decision I have ever made in my life.

My Australian girlfriend moved to Singapore for a few months to see if we could build a life here instead. But things didn't work out, and we eventually ended the relationship.

Since coming back, I haven't had much of a social life.

I ended up starting Huddle, an AI-powered social network for fandoms, with my cofounder, Fabian. Starting a company was not the path I had spent my life working toward, but it became another passion.

At this stage, my life is very much centered on work and my family, with whom I live. I choose to have no other commitments outside those two things, which gives me some room to respond when my family needs support.

I make sure my mom gets the care she needs. I take her to the hospital and arrange her treatments. I do the same for my grandparents.

When I returned, my younger sister had just started university. I wanted her to focus on her studies, so I took on more of the day-to-day care for our family.

Once my mom is doing better, I hope to move to the US to grow my company with my cofounder, while my sister and I share responsibility for supporting her.

Coming back meant starting over in a lot of ways. However, I would make that decision again and again for my mom. Always.