13 - Social Mobility in Singapore

Summary

CHALLENGES TO SOCIAL MOBILITY IN SINGAPORE

Singapore's economic growth has been phenomenal over the past four decades. This growth has resulted in strong economic upward mobility. This can be seen in Figure 13.1 which shows the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of Singapore in 2004 prices and the corresponding annual real growth rates from 1960 to 2006. The real GDP per capita in 2006 was 11.2 times that in 1960, registering an average real growth rate of 5.3 per cent per annum. Supporting this upward trend of real GDP per capita are government policies which are growth-oriented, be it enhancing the human capital of Singaporeans via training and education, attracting foreign investors, importing technologies and talent, hastening R&D, or exploring export markets for Singapore goods and services. With sound government policies and an institutional setup conducive to business, the private sector, comprising both local and foreign players, is able to thrive. Nevertheless as Singapore moves up the global economic ladder, are Singaporeans also moving up the social ladder? What are the challenges faced by the next generation of Singaporeans in their ascent of the social ladder?

Social mobility may be simply defined as the chance of a person changing his or her social or economic status compared with his or her origin status. In this chapter, we will focus on three aspects of socio-economic status: income, occupation, and education. If “origin status” refers to the status of his or her parent, social mobility is then known as inter-generational mobility. This chapter will examine empirically both general social mobility using aggregate data and inter-generational mobility when data linking generations is available. There is another important dimension of social mobility: absolute versus relative mobility. While it is possible to have absolute upward mobility for all, it is impossible to have relative upward mobility for all as the relative upward mobility of a person must be accompanied by the relative downward mobility of another person. Changes in the weights of each relative position in a social ladder give a measure of the changes in the distribution of people in the social ladder, and hence relative social mobility is related to inequality in society. Forces affecting social mobility, which is dynamic as it is a measure across time, will determine how a static measure of inequality will evolve over time.