Inequalities in Singapore: income, wealth, class, opportunities...

[Dr Christopher Cheok C S]

Three articles in 4 days from the same media, are they trying to whitewash?
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/big-read-sky-high-coe-prices-singaporeans-cars-land-transport-3845991
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/com...ecord-premiums-expensive-private-hire-3857871
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/coe-prices-cars-system-failures-tweaks-analysts-3852336

Are cars also used for money laundering in Singapore?
car transfer fee is only $25

Some luxury cars just sold out immediately when launches, such buyers are usually all born in China with passports in St Kitts, Vanuatu, Cambodia, Dominica, with mailing address in Malaysia and Singapore hahaa

Just like other countries' washing machines, use yachts and private jets detergents.
Singapore uses cars

Two more articles (total five in a week)
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/big-read-sky-high-coe-prices-singaporeans-cars-land-transport-3845991
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/com...ecord-premiums-expensive-private-hire-3857871
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/coe-prices-cars-system-failures-tweaks-analysts-3852336

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/co...need-radical-overhaul-look-three-alternatives
https://www.straitstimes.com/opinio...ds-to-longer-bto-queues-and-rising-coe-prices

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Forum: Caregiving is different for those with fewer means​

NOV 10, 2023

It is heartening to know that more emphasis is given to understanding mental health issues (Parents take on caregiver role after son develops mental health issues, Nov 9). But it was also frustrating for me to read the article.
The caregivers mentioned seem to be fairly well-to-do, and can afford private healthcare for their child.
I am a single mother caring for three children below 16 who all have mental health issues at the moment. Two have been diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with mood disorders, and the other is now having depression.
Sadly, I do not have the means to afford private healthcare for them and we have been referred to the Child Guidance Clinic at the Institute of Mental Health for the past year.
I find the support from public healthcare limited and there is not much collaboration between the psychiatrist or psychologist and schools and parents.
The waiting time is long and the session is short. I feel that I still need more answers and help after a session, and often leave frustrated.
If the long wait time is because IMH is short-staffed, more can be done to bring in more public healthcare staff.

I have also attended the caregivers-to-caregivers programme for persons caring for those with mental health issues mentioned in the article but again, at the end of the day, I need physical assistance, not just empathy from support groups.
I have written to the authorities for better support in the public healthcare system, especially for mental health issues. There are many more like me who need more help in this area. Right now, it is just draining to anyone looking for help.

Lok Pei Ping

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Study finds large disparities in pre-schoolers’ test scores based on parents’ income, education​

The first three years of a child’s life is crucial for learning, so it is especially vital to get children from low-income families enrolled in pre-school as early as possible. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO

Theresa Tan
Senior Social Affairs Correspondent

NOV 19, 2023

SINGAPORE – Pre-school children with parents who are better educated or have a higher income tend to do significantly better when it comes to language and numeracy skills.
And children of parents with higher educational qualifications are more likely to do better at practising self-control and delayed gratification, where they forgo a smaller reward offered immediately in return for a bigger one if they wait.
Those who are better able to put off instant gratification also tend to score higher in language and numeracy skills.
These are the key findings of a new study of almost 3,000 children aged between three and six years old in Singapore.
The study found large disparities in their test scores based on their parents’ socio-economic status (SES), which is measured by the parents’ annual income and educational qualifications.
Professor Jean Yeung and Dr Chen Xuejiao, who are both from the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, authored the study. It was published in the 2023 fourth-quarter edition of the Early Childhood Research Quarterly, an international academic journal.
Prof Yeung, who is also the director of Social Sciences at the A*Star’s Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, said this is the first study on early childhood development in Singapore that is based on a nationally representative sample of families with young children.

The children tested are all part of the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-Leads), which is funded by the Ministry of Education and aims to look into factors that affect early childhood development.
The study found that:

• Children whose parents are more educated or have a higher income tend to do significantly better in an international standardised test, called the Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Test, that has been adapted to the Singapore context. The letter-word identification section assesses the child’s language and verbal skills, while its applied problems test measures mathematics and numeracy skills.
• For example, children in the top 25th percentile of annual family income of $150,000 or more, on average, had test scores in the 68th percentile for the applied problems test. Meanwhile, children in the bottom 25th percentile of family income, which is $48,000 or lower, scored in the 43rd percentile.
• Children with parents who have university and higher education scored, on average, in the 60th percentile in the letter-word identification test, whereas those whose parents have secondary or lower education scored in the 34th percentile.

Prof Yeung said parents with higher SES tend to have fewer financial woes, higher educational expectations of their child, and provide a well-maintained home environment. They also set more boundaries for them, such as rules about homework or what the child does after school, among other things.

She said: “Expectations affect behaviour.” This is because parents who have a higher expectation of their child’s educational attainment spend, on average, more time and more money on their child, such as reading a book together, going to the library and paying for learning-related activities and materials for the child, she added.

They are also more likely to stimulate their child’s curiosity and help their child learn and think critically, which leads to higher test scores.
But between the parents’ education and income, education has a bigger impact on the child’s test scores, Prof Yeung said. This is because education has an influence on more factors, such as values and behaviour that shape the child’s test scores.

The study also found that the more often a child forgoes instant gratification, the higher his or her test scores are. This finding is consistent with past research that shows that a child’s capacity to delay instant gratification during his early years predicts his academic achievement, Prof Yeung said.
This is because the process of choosing to delay instant gratification is crucial in helping young children concentrate and remember, among other things, and this helps their performance in academic tasks, she explained.
Better-educated parents are also more likely to teach their children about the importance of making decisions that would benefit them in the longer run, such as studying hard and not spending too much time watching television, she said. Hence, their children tend to have a greater ability to delay being immediately gratified.
The study also found that primary caregivers who are better educated tend to have better self-control, so the child also learns about self-control from his parent.
The study comes in the wake of the Government’s move to reduce income inequality and boost social mobility under the Forward Singapore report, which was launched on Oct 27. One of the Government’s plans is to encourage more lower-income families to send their children to pre-school by the age of three to reduce the risk of their development lagging behind that of their peers when they enter Primary 1.
The enrolment and attendance of children from such families at the ages of three to four tend to be lower than the national average, the report said.

Prof Yeung said her research provides empirical evidence to support what the Government is proposing to do. She said: “We need to help the families when children are still very young, before they attend primary school. Otherwise, we will see a vicious circle of disadvantage that significantly limits the social mobility of children from families with low SES.”
Low-income parents must also be better equipped to learn positive parenting behaviour and to help their children with learning needs, among other things, she said.

Ms Cherlynn Ang, manager of children and youth services at Care Corner Singapore, pointed out that the study’s recommendations to help parents have stable jobs and decent wages to be able to support their children are important.
If parents’ basic needs are not met, they would not have the time, energy or bandwidth to even think about helping their child with his learning needs, she said.
The first three years of a child’s life is crucial for learning, she said, and so it is especially vital to get children from low-income families enrolled in pre-school as early as possible.
Her colleague, Mr Vital Tan, Care Corner’s assistant director of children and youth services, said: “Going to pre-school is now the norm. If children from low-SES families don’t go to pre-school, their disadvantage will get more entrenched over time.”

 

[k1976]

They are needed to clean tables, clear rubbish etc.

For the Privileged Ones, it helps Atas people to feel more meaningful in their life de woh

 

[Loofydralb]

PAP talk kok. Make all properties 99 year leasehold first.
Of course they won't jeopardize their own interests.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

$1.50 per school day....

Forum: Raise amount of bursaries for students​

Dec 9, 2023

I applaud the latest move by the Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) to revise the income ceiling for its bursaries so that more needy students can qualify for them (New income ceiling for CDAC’s student bursaries; more needy families to get help, Dec 3).
In line with this move, can CDAC work with relevant agencies to increase the bursary amounts? With inflation, school canteen food prices have risen as well.
I have two primary school-going children, and food prices in the school canteen have gone up from $1.50 to $2 in the past two years.
Recipients of primary school bursaries of $300 per annum would find it hard to get a good meal with this amount.
There are 40 school weeks in a year and five school days in a week. This would work out to $1.50 per school day.
It would be good if the amount for primary school bursaries is increased to around $400. The amounts for secondary school and post-secondary school bursaries could also be adjusted.
The impending increases in the goods and services tax as well as water prices in 2024 would lead to a rise in food prices again.

If the intention is to help low-income families defray the costs of raising children in Singapore, some consideration should be given to increasing the bursary amounts.

Raymond Khoo Tin Wan

 

[congo9]

Study finds large disparities in pre-schoolers’ test scores based on parents’ income, education​

The first three years of a child’s life is crucial for learning, so it is especially vital to get children from low-income families enrolled in pre-school as early as possible. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO

Theresa Tan
Senior Social Affairs Correspondent

NOV 19, 2023

SINGAPORE – Pre-school children with parents who are better educated or have a higher income tend to do significantly better when it comes to language and numeracy skills.
And children of parents with higher educational qualifications are more likely to do better at practising self-control and delayed gratification, where they forgo a smaller reward offered immediately in return for a bigger one if they wait.
Those who are better able to put off instant gratification also tend to score higher in language and numeracy skills.
These are the key findings of a new study of almost 3,000 children aged between three and six years old in Singapore.
The study found large disparities in their test scores based on their parents’ socio-economic status (SES), which is measured by the parents’ annual income and educational qualifications.
Professor Jean Yeung and Dr Chen Xuejiao, who are both from the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, authored the study. It was published in the 2023 fourth-quarter edition of the Early Childhood Research Quarterly, an international academic journal.
Prof Yeung, who is also the director of Social Sciences at the A*Star’s Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, said this is the first study on early childhood development in Singapore that is based on a nationally representative sample of families with young children.

The children tested are all part of the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-Leads), which is funded by the Ministry of Education and aims to look into factors that affect early childhood development.
The study found that:

• Children whose parents are more educated or have a higher income tend to do significantly better in an international standardised test, called the Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Test, that has been adapted to the Singapore context. The letter-word identification section assesses the child’s language and verbal skills, while its applied problems test measures mathematics and numeracy skills.
• For example, children in the top 25th percentile of annual family income of $150,000 or more, on average, had test scores in the 68th percentile for the applied problems test. Meanwhile, children in the bottom 25th percentile of family income, which is $48,000 or lower, scored in the 43rd percentile.
• Children with parents who have university and higher education scored, on average, in the 60th percentile in the letter-word identification test, whereas those whose parents have secondary or lower education scored in the 34th percentile.

Prof Yeung said parents with higher SES tend to have fewer financial woes, higher educational expectations of their child, and provide a well-maintained home environment. They also set more boundaries for them, such as rules about homework or what the child does after school, among other things.

She said: “Expectations affect behaviour.” This is because parents who have a higher expectation of their child’s educational attainment spend, on average, more time and more money on their child, such as reading a book together, going to the library and paying for learning-related activities and materials for the child, she added.

They are also more likely to stimulate their child’s curiosity and help their child learn and think critically, which leads to higher test scores.
But between the parents’ education and income, education has a bigger impact on the child’s test scores, Prof Yeung said. This is because education has an influence on more factors, such as values and behaviour that shape the child’s test scores.

The study also found that the more often a child forgoes instant gratification, the higher his or her test scores are. This finding is consistent with past research that shows that a child’s capacity to delay instant gratification during his early years predicts his academic achievement, Prof Yeung said.
This is because the process of choosing to delay instant gratification is crucial in helping young children concentrate and remember, among other things, and this helps their performance in academic tasks, she explained.
Better-educated parents are also more likely to teach their children about the importance of making decisions that would benefit them in the longer run, such as studying hard and not spending too much time watching television, she said. Hence, their children tend to have a greater ability to delay being immediately gratified.
The study also found that primary caregivers who are better educated tend to have better self-control, so the child also learns about self-control from his parent.
The study comes in the wake of the Government’s move to reduce income inequality and boost social mobility under the Forward Singapore report, which was launched on Oct 27. One of the Government’s plans is to encourage more lower-income families to send their children to pre-school by the age of three to reduce the risk of their development lagging behind that of their peers when they enter Primary 1.
The enrolment and attendance of children from such families at the ages of three to four tend to be lower than the national average, the report said.

Prof Yeung said her research provides empirical evidence to support what the Government is proposing to do. She said: “We need to help the families when children are still very young, before they attend primary school. Otherwise, we will see a vicious circle of disadvantage that significantly limits the social mobility of children from families with low SES.”
Low-income parents must also be better equipped to learn positive parenting behaviour and to help their children with learning needs, among other things, she said.

Ms Cherlynn Ang, manager of children and youth services at Care Corner Singapore, pointed out that the study’s recommendations to help parents have stable jobs and decent wages to be able to support their children are important.
If parents’ basic needs are not met, they would not have the time, energy or bandwidth to even think about helping their child with his learning needs, she said.
The first three years of a child’s life is crucial for learning, she said, and so it is especially vital to get children from low-income families enrolled in pre-school as early as possible.
Her colleague, Mr Vital Tan, Care Corner’s assistant director of children and youth services, said: “Going to pre-school is now the norm. If children from low-SES families don’t go to pre-school, their disadvantage will get more entrenched over time.”

Going preschool from age 3 onwards is good.
Mum should stay home and take care of the kids from the 1st 3 years.

After 3, kids should go attend preschool education.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Forum: Retirees still need more help to be re-employed​

JAN 06, 2024

I refer to the reply by the Ministry of Manpower (Steps taken to support senior workers on re-employment, Jan 3).
Kudos to the Manpower Ministry for the schemes it has put in place to extend the employment of seniors, and its encouragement of employers to do so.
However, the ministry did not address the point made by Mr Tristan Gwee (Tap older workers’ wealth of experience, Dec 11) and Mr Ong Kim Bock (Do more to get retirees back in workforce, Dec 14), that is, to tap seniors who have left the workforce, and would like to, and can potentially, be re-employed.
In my interactions with other retired seniors, I have found that many of us would like to be re-employed.
I have applied to the ministry, other government bodies and tripartite organisations, but with no success.
Other seniors have had similar experiences, and we have come to the same conclusion that ageism played a role in why we were not employed.
The Government has called for employers to engage seniors as part of the workforce. But can we expect the private sector to overlook ageism and employ seniors, when government bodies do not seem to walk the talk?

There is a group of retired but capable seniors who have been sidelined. With their efforts to rejoin the workforce not bearing fruit, they are resigned to spending their time at coffee shops or binge-watching TV shows instead of contributing to the nation.

Lai Tuck Kee

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Former minister Mah Bow Tan sells Good Class Bungalow at Holland Rise for $50 mil​

By Cecilia Chow/ EdgeProp Singapore
March 4, 2024


Mah Bow Tan's GCB at Holland Rise fetched $50 million in August (Photo: Samuel Isaac Chua/EdgeProp Singapore)

Mah Bow Tan, former Minister for National Development who retired from politics in 2015, sold his Good Class Bungalow (GCB) at Holland Rise last August. The 28,376 sq ft freehold site is on a quiet street at Holland Rise with just a handful of GCBs. It is just off Holland Road in prime District 10. According to a property title search, Mah purchased the property in 1992.
In the latest transaction, Mah's GCB on Holland Rise was sold to Wang Qianqian, a Chinese-turned-Singapore citizen, who purchased it for $50 million ($1,762 psf). Based on the transfer document, the contract was signed in April 2023, with the deal completed in August last year.
Wang's address in the property title is a GCB at Leedon Park, also in prime District 10. A further property title search shows that the GCB at Leedon Park sits on a freehold site of 21,584 sq ft and was purchased by her brother, Wang Tianlong, for $37.3 million ($1,728 psf) in January 2021. The Wang siblings are said to be in their early-30s.

The 52,992 sq ft, freehold vacant plot at Holland Rise is large enough to be sub-divided into two or three smaller GCBs. The site was last on the market for sale at $106 million ($2,000 psf) in Nov 2022 (Photo: Cushman & Wakefield)

GCB values in the Holland Rise neighbourhood in prime District 10 have appreciated significantly in recent years. In January 2021, a 52,992 sq ft, freehold empty GCB plot at Holland Rise was put up for sale by Cushman & Wakefield by expression of interest at a guide price of $68 million ($1,283 psf).
Less than two years later, in November 2022, that same vacant GCB plot on Holland Rise was on the market for sale at 55.88% higher - $106 million ($2,000 psf), with Knight Frank as the marketing agent. The GCB plot is large enough to be subdivided into two or three smaller GCBs and is accessible via Holland Rise and East Sussex Lane.
According to caveats lodged, the latest transaction in the neighbourhood of East Sussex Lane and Holland Rise was for a bungalow house on Holland Road: The house was built in 1959 and sits on a freehold site of 6,768 sq ft. It changed hands for $10 million ($1,596 psf) in November 2023.
Holland Rise may be an exclusive area, but it's close to Holland Village, the new One Holland Village Mall, Holland Village MRT Station, and a seven-minute drive to Dempsey Hill.

 

[blissquek]

PAP pays lip service to all these lah. Walk the talk, increases taxes for the elite high income earners and impose estate duties. Otherwise, please don't talk cock.

Sometime ago , one owner has 20 units of Waterside condo in district 15. He wanted to sell lot stick n barrel . Shouldn’t he be taxed ..??

 

[k1976]

You will surely notice all top management jobs in sinki are all recycled among you know who. This is to ensure that opportunities are not let go to outsiders. U just content to be a peasant and enjoy your cdc vouchers once in a while.

We are just like cina.

"Recycling " of good trusted talents mah

 

[k1976]

That is why Ah Gong once say...Asian Country is very important to have Good GuanXi

 

[Loofydralb]

The bodoh Malays will forever be at the lower rungs of society and too dumb to figure out that their only way out is migration.

 

[birdie69]

Sometime ago , one owner has 20 units of Waterside condo in district 15. He wanted to sell lot stick n barrel . Shouldn’t he be taxed ..??

Sold a GCB by a ex minister also not subject to tax

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

How the high cost of living is hitting Singapore's poor​

31 January 2022
By Mariko Oi,Asia business correspondent

OK Chicken Rice
Chicken rice stalls have seen higher costs of ingredients, electricity and labour
In South East Asia you don't get much more of a staple food than chicken rice. Found in almost every food court and hawker centre, it is considered one of Singapore's national dishes.

Daniel Tan, who owns six chicken rice stalls, has previously charged $2.20 (£1.60) for a small portion. But Covid has seen the cost of his ingredients rise sharply.

The price of chicken has gone up by 50% and vegetable costs have more than doubled since January 2020, he says.

"We've been absorbing the costs for a significant period of time," he tells me as we meet at one of his OK Chicken Rice stalls in the north of Singapore.

"When the pandemic hit our first thought was this was a short-term emergency - six months, maybe a year - so we held [prices] for as long as we can because we were hoping for the whole thing to be over."

Getty Images
Lower rice prices mean that inflation has been more muted across Asia than elsewhere in the world
But when his electricity bills also jumped, Mr Tan decided it was time to raise prices. "A thousand dollar electrical bill for a chicken rice store really is not sustainable," he says.

"If I go on any further, either my staff are not paid or I have to close down some stores and that's not what we want to do."

Due to border closures and new employment regulations, Mr Tan has faced staff shortages and higher salaries, which all feed into rising costs for his business.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says global food prices rose 28% in 2021.


"The last time food prices were this high was in 2011, when policymakers were actually warning about a global food crisis," says Dr Abdul Abiad of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

These latest price rises are due to higher energy costs, which affect food and fertiliser production, with global supply chain issues compounding the problem.

Even in a wealthy nation like Singapore, it means that the number of families seeking help has increased.


"What we have seen when we make the door-to-door deliveries is that young families [with] both husband and wife working a part-time job or in the gig economy - these were the families that got impacted when Covid hit and all the part-time work dried up," says Nichol Ng, co-founder of Food Bank Singapore.

It is not just the poorest 10% of the population who now need help, she says: "It has slowly crept to maybe 20% of the population including middle income families that might not even know where to get help in the first place."

And it is also not just higher food prices that are affecting those in need. "Due to Covid, everybody's self-awareness about looking after themselves in terms of hygiene has increased," says Ms Ng.

Nichol Ng of the Food Bank Singapore says she has seen a rise in people asking for help
But higher palm oil prices mean that shampoos, hand soaps and sanitisers have also become a lot more expensive.


"Up to 20% of our requests thus far, especially starting from the second half of last year, has been pivoting towards personal hygiene products," she adds.

Ms Ng is also concerned that the current wave of inflation does not seem to be temporary. "In the past, at certain times of the year, you might see these price surges but it seems that this inflation is going to be persistent - and none of us really have that crystal ball to understand when it is going to end," she says.

Elsewhere in the region the impact of higher prices is even more severe. The latest FAO report shows more than 375 million people in Asia faced hunger in 2020, an increase of 54 million from the previous year.

In 2020, the Global Food Banking Network saw the number of people needing help increase by more than 130% to 40m, with half of them living in Asia.

This is despite the fact that food price increases in Asia have been more muted than in the US or Europe, where inflation has soared to levels not seen in decades.

There are several reasons for this, including a good rice harvest in 2021, says the ADB's Dr Abiad. While maize prices rose 44% last year and wheat by 31% , rice prices dropped 4% . "So rice being the main staple in many Asian economies contributed to a food price inflation being lower in the region," he says.

Asian nations also produce a lot of their own food, which has been sold in domestic markets rather than being exported. Governments have also been working to ensure that food supplies have been stable, says Dr Abiad.

In the Philippines, for example, liberalisation of rice imports has allowed the supply of rice to improve which has kept prices low.


Meanwhile, China has been stockpiling various important food products, which has resulted in it bucking the trend, with the country's food prices falling in 2021.

But it has also led to criticism that the world's second biggest economy, which accounts for 20% of global population, is hoarding supplies as it is estimated to hold 69% of the world's corn reserves, 60% of its rice and 51% of its wheat by mid-2022, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Getty Images
Global food prices are expected to remain high in 2022
Singapore imports the majority of its foodstuffs, but so far big supermarket chains like NTUC FairPrice have decided not to pass on higher prices to consumers.

To keep the prices of key products stable, the firm says it is employing various strategies including "stockpiling of daily essentials, forward buying and diversifying our import sources to over 100 countries".


NTUC FairPrice also has more than 2,000 own-brand products such as rice, oil, toiletries and cleaning products that it says are at least 10% cheaper than comparable popular brands.

Mr Tan of OK Chicken Rice, who also owns three mini supermarkets, says smaller retailers tend to take their cue from larger rivals when pricing goods.

"They act like a central bank to the rest of the grocery players in Singapore. The good thing about it is that inflation doesn't spike up as much during a crisis but the bad side effect is that entrepreneurship is stifled and only semi-government players can survive," he says.

Daniel Tan
Daniel Tan also owns minimarts which have also seen higher costs
"The question is, after the whole thing is over how many smaller players are left?" asks Mr Tan.


Global food prices are expected to remain high this year and the FAO's David Dawe says this is of concern for Asian governments because price hikes have not yet worked their way through the system.

"If global prices continue to rise, there will be an impact, especially for lower income families who spend bigger proportion of their income on food."

Economists like Mr Dawe and Dr Abiad remain optimistic that Asian countries will continue to be shielded from double-digit food inflation.

But for those on the ground, like Mr Tan and Ms Ng, the issue feels more acute. They wonder whether higher prices, rather than being transitory, will linger on just as the pandemic has.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Singapore inequality: How a tote bag sparked a debate about class​

31 January 2023
By Nicholas Yong,BBC News
Share

Supplied
The post that sparked a social media storm
Earlier this month, 17-year-old Zoe Gabriel posted on TikTok about her "first luxury bag": a tote bag from retailer Charles & Keith, purchased by her father for the princely sum of S$79.90 ($60; £50).

The post and those that followed have now drawn tens of millions of views and snowballed into a wider debate about class and social inequality in Singapore, a wealthy country whose government is becoming wary of increasing signs of stratification.

Charles & Keith is a Singaporean mid-range brand dubbed "Little CK" (Little Calvin Klein) in China and Taiwan, and is also popular in countries such as India and Thailand.

But in status-conscious Singapore, whose glitzy malls are packed with designer outlets, it does not count as luxury and the initial post, which has now had more than 20 million views, quickly drew contemptuous comments.

"Calling this luxury is the same as calling a fast food restaurant fine dining," said one snarky TikTokker.


Zoe, the eldest of four children, responded with an emotional video referencing a commenter who had said with a laughing emoji, "Who's gonna tell her?"

In the post, seen more than six million times, she said: "Growing up, I did not have a lot. My family didn't have a lot. To you, an $80 bag may not be a luxury, but to me and my family, it is a lot."

This time the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Zoe's TikTok following has since jumped by more than 200,000, while Charles & Keith and other brands also plied her with gifts.

Zoe, who moved to Singapore with her family from the Philippines in 2010, told the BBC that while she was heartened by the online support, she felt "overwhelmed and sad" by comments that criticised her father, a mechanical engineer (she has since deleted them).

"I also didn't understand why it was so hard for people to understand why [the bag] meant so much to me, in a sentimental and monetary sense," she said.


The debate has reached the upper echelons of Singapore's political life, with Lawrence Wong, the current deputy PM who is due to become the country's next leader, alluding to the episode in a speech urging Singaporeans not to be overly preoccupied with status and social prestige.

Class matters​

As a multiracial, multicultural country that has experienced racial riots, Singapore has historically been most concerned with preserving racial and religious harmony. There are stiff penalties, including jail time, for those who wound racial or religious feelings.

But in 2018, OnePeople.sg - an agency promoting racial harmony - commissioned research that identified the class divide as potentially the country's most divisive fault line. The year before, the Institute of Policy Studies, a prominent local think tank, came to the same conclusion.

The city-state, which has some of the highest-paid ministers in the world, is a place of sometimes extreme contrasts, with glittering condominiums and towering facades just a stone's throw from one-room rental apartments inhabited by elderly and blue-collar families. Despite the image projected by the film Crazy Rich Asians, not everyone can afford a Charles & Keith bag.

Getty Images
Most Singaporeans live in publicly built housing

Last year, a study by the National University of Singapore showed that the median income of graduates in their 20s and 30s was S$4,200 a month, more than double the salary of those with secondary or lower education. By contrast, a cleaner is projected to earn between S$1,570 and S$2,210 this year.

Soaring inflation has also come to the fore, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and the increasing costs of manpower and ingredients. A recent 1% hike in the controversial goods and services tax, with another to come next year, has also driven up the cost of everyday staples such as eggs and fresh vegetables.

• How the high cost of living is hitting Singapore's poor
• Singapore's crypto ambitions shaken by FTX collapse

Skyrocketing property prices - even public housing flats in desirable neighbourhoods can fetch up to a million dollars on the resale market - have added to concerns about social inequality.

Last year Singapore was ranked the most expensive city in the world, together with New York, by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

A middle-class country?​

Ironically, despite the presence of the "crazy rich" and the less fortunate, Singaporeans tend to believe that their country is largely middle-class, noted prominent lawyer Adrian Tan, 55. This is down to the fact that almost 80% of the population lives in high quality public housing and has easy access to good broadband, rigorous education and the like.

Mr Tan has written extensively on social media about his own humble background - he lived in a "tiny flat" in one of the city-state's earliest public housing projects, and grew up with neither a telephone nor a TV.

"Singaporeans are attuned to minute differences in material positions [and] judge one another on the level of wealth accumulation," he told the BBC.

He said the mocking commenters simply felt Zoe was "ignorant" of what some Singaporeans feel is a "widespread consensus" on what luxury items are.

"Those who can afford consumer goods such as a Charles & Keith bag don't see themselves as particularly privileged or wealthy," he added.


Alluding to the infamous "5 Cs" tagline of the 1990s - when Singaporeans aspired to having cash, country club, car, credit card and condominium - Nydia Ngiow of the strategic policy advisory firm Bower Group Asia said it would be hard to shift such attitudes "particularly for younger generations who have only experienced a prosperous Singapore in recent decades".

She said the idea of social equality had increasing resonance among younger people and this had driven positive comments on Zoe's posts after the initial social media storm.

Getty Images
Singapore has plenty of designer shopping
Mr Tan also pointed out that while Singaporeans are "acutely sensitive" to the plight of poorer people, they are less interested in structural reform and concepts like a minimum wage.

"Singaporeans are, by and large, satisfied with the society they've built. The attitude here is 'if it ain't broke, don't reform it'," he said.


Despite this, officials are keen to intervene.

In 2018, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned that elite schools - those open only to students with the best grades - were in danger of becoming "self-perpetuating closed circles", while Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said social mobility had fallen.

"For families who cannot move up despite the stronger and better support that is available now, we find their circumstances more dire and challenging than poor families of the past," Mr Ong said.

The government already spends more than a third of the annual state budget on education, healthcare and housing. During the pandemic, it also pumped almost S$59bn into support measures for workers, businesses and households.

Recent corrective measures include disbursing hundreds of dollars in vouchers to Singaporean households, to be used for groceries and daily expenses, to offset the GST tax hike.


Mr Wong, who is also Finance Minister, has indicated that the wealthy can expect to pay more taxes going forward, and has floated the idea of a wealth tax.

Zoe meanwhile remains sanguine about the social media storm and its aftermath.

"I love living in Singapore, and I don't think it has changed my perspective in a bad way," she said. "It reminded me that there's always going to be somebody who doesn't agree with you, and we can't please everybody."

 

[k1976]

Sold a GCB by a ex minister also not subject to tax

U sold HDBee is also not subject to tax mah....until now lah

 

[bobby]

For a start to stop inequality in wealth….HDB should only have 5 room flats as the only standard units available and all re-sale must go through HDB.

No more different classes of HDB flats and locality is irrelevant to price.

 

[k1976]

Study finds large disparities in pre-schoolers’ test scores based on parents’ income, education​

The first three years of a child’s life is crucial for learning, so it is especially vital to get children from low-income families enrolled in pre-school as early as possible. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO

Theresa Tan
Senior Social Affairs Correspondent

NOV 19, 2023

SINGAPORE – Pre-school children with parents who are better educated or have a higher income tend to do significantly better when it comes to language and numeracy skills.
And children of parents with higher educational qualifications are more likely to do better at practising self-control and delayed gratification, where they forgo a smaller reward offered immediately in return for a bigger one if they wait.
Those who are better able to put off instant gratification also tend to score higher in language and numeracy skills.
These are the key findings of a new study of almost 3,000 children aged between three and six years old in Singapore.
The study found large disparities in their test scores based on their parents’ socio-economic status (SES), which is measured by the parents’ annual income and educational qualifications.
Professor Jean Yeung and Dr Chen Xuejiao, who are both from the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, authored the study. It was published in the 2023 fourth-quarter edition of the Early Childhood Research Quarterly, an international academic journal.
Prof Yeung, who is also the director of Social Sciences at the A*Star’s Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, said this is the first study on early childhood development in Singapore that is based on a nationally representative sample of families with young children.

The children tested are all part of the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-Leads), which is funded by the Ministry of Education and aims to look into factors that affect early childhood development.
The study found that:

• Children whose parents are more educated or have a higher income tend to do significantly better in an international standardised test, called the Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Test, that has been adapted to the Singapore context. The letter-word identification section assesses the child’s language and verbal skills, while its applied problems test measures mathematics and numeracy skills.
• For example, children in the top 25th percentile of annual family income of $150,000 or more, on average, had test scores in the 68th percentile for the applied problems test. Meanwhile, children in the bottom 25th percentile of family income, which is $48,000 or lower, scored in the 43rd percentile.
• Children with parents who have university and higher education scored, on average, in the 60th percentile in the letter-word identification test, whereas those whose parents have secondary or lower education scored in the 34th percentile.

Prof Yeung said parents with higher SES tend to have fewer financial woes, higher educational expectations of their child, and provide a well-maintained home environment. They also set more boundaries for them, such as rules about homework or what the child does after school, among other things.

She said: “Expectations affect behaviour.” This is because parents who have a higher expectation of their child’s educational attainment spend, on average, more time and more money on their child, such as reading a book together, going to the library and paying for learning-related activities and materials for the child, she added.

They are also more likely to stimulate their child’s curiosity and help their child learn and think critically, which leads to higher test scores.
But between the parents’ education and income, education has a bigger impact on the child’s test scores, Prof Yeung said. This is because education has an influence on more factors, such as values and behaviour that shape the child’s test scores.

The study also found that the more often a child forgoes instant gratification, the higher his or her test scores are. This finding is consistent with past research that shows that a child’s capacity to delay instant gratification during his early years predicts his academic achievement, Prof Yeung said.
This is because the process of choosing to delay instant gratification is crucial in helping young children concentrate and remember, among other things, and this helps their performance in academic tasks, she explained.
Better-educated parents are also more likely to teach their children about the importance of making decisions that would benefit them in the longer run, such as studying hard and not spending too much time watching television, she said. Hence, their children tend to have a greater ability to delay being immediately gratified.
The study also found that primary caregivers who are better educated tend to have better self-control, so the child also learns about self-control from his parent.
The study comes in the wake of the Government’s move to reduce income inequality and boost social mobility under the Forward Singapore report, which was launched on Oct 27. One of the Government’s plans is to encourage more lower-income families to send their children to pre-school by the age of three to reduce the risk of their development lagging behind that of their peers when they enter Primary 1.
The enrolment and attendance of children from such families at the ages of three to four tend to be lower than the national average, the report said.

Prof Yeung said her research provides empirical evidence to support what the Government is proposing to do. She said: “We need to help the families when children are still very young, before they attend primary school. Otherwise, we will see a vicious circle of disadvantage that significantly limits the social mobility of children from families with low SES.”
Low-income parents must also be better equipped to learn positive parenting behaviour and to help their children with learning needs, among other things, she said.

Ms Cherlynn Ang, manager of children and youth services at Care Corner Singapore, pointed out that the study’s recommendations to help parents have stable jobs and decent wages to be able to support their children are important.
If parents’ basic needs are not met, they would not have the time, energy or bandwidth to even think about helping their child with his learning needs, she said.
The first three years of a child’s life is crucial for learning, she said, and so it is especially vital to get children from low-income families enrolled in pre-school as early as possible.
Her colleague, Mr Vital Tan, Care Corner’s assistant director of children and youth services, said: “Going to pre-school is now the norm. If children from low-SES families don’t go to pre-school, their disadvantage will get more entrenched over time.”

Higher income also mean Better Genes for better education outcomes?

 

[bigozt]

Kong simi lan? U wan SG to becum like our sick neighbor Mudland? Where the incompetent rule? E.g. Anwar the Hamas lover cum backside fucker