Social Policy in Post-Industrial Singapore
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Social Policy in Post-Industrial Singapore TONG_f1_i-vi.indd i 2/7/2008 1:35:43 PM Social Sciences in Asia Edited by Vineeta Sinha Syed Farid Alatas Chan Kwok-bun VOLUME 17 TONG_f1_i-vi.indd ii 2/7/2008 1:35:44 PM Social Policy in Post-Industrial Singapore Edited by Lian Kwen Fee & Tong Chee Kiong LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 TONG_f1_i-vi.indd iii 2/7/2008 1:35:44 PM Cover photo montage: Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore collection. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISSN 1567-2794 ISBN 978 90 04 16642 4 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. 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Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands TONG_f1_i-vi.indd iv 2/7/2008 1:35:44 PM CONTENTS Social Policy Issues in a Post-Industrial Society .......................... 1 Tong Chee Kiong and Lian Kwen Fee Is There a Social Policy in Singapore ......................................... 21 Lian Kwen Fee Family Policies: Interface of Gender, Work, and the Sacredization of Child ................................................................ 45 Paulin Tay Straughan Social Policy for the Aged in Singapore ...................................... 73 Angelique Chan Education, Globalization and Equality ....................................... 97 Anne Raffi n Manufacturing Human Resources: The Role of Social Investment State .......................................................................... 121 Alexius A. Pereira Management of Foreign Manpower ........................................... 145 Md. Mizanur Rahman Household Production as a Moderator in Singapore’s Economic Development .............................................................. 173 Euston Quah and Lim Sze How Strengthening the Nation’s Roots? Heritage Policies in Singapore .................................................... 201 Brenda S.A. Yeoh and Shirlena Huang Culture and the Arts: Intrusion in Political Space ...................... 225 Chua Beng Huat TONG_f1_i-vi.indd v 2/7/2008 1:35:44 PM vi contents Criminal Justice Policy: Social Order, Risk and the “Governmental Project” ............................................................. 247 Narayanan Ganapathy Decoding Sexual Policy in Singapore ......................................... 279 Laurence Leong Wai Teng Convergence with a Twist: East Asian Welfare Capitalism in Comparative Perspective ............................................................. 309 Volker H. Schmidt Index ........................................................................................... 333 TONG_f1_i-vi.indd vi 2/7/2008 1:35:44 PM SOCIAL POLICY ISSUES IN A POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY Tong Chee Kiong and Lian Kwen Fee I The Historical Setting The ‘welfare state’ is a dirty word, at least amongst the fi rst generation PAP leadership. The origins of this aversion for welfarism may be traced to the time when the key leaders of that generation went to Britain for their university education in the post-war years. While there was much to admire about British society at the time, including its civility and the ability of its people to pull together after the devastation of the Second World War, these leaders were fully convinced, by the 1970s, that state welfarism had the undesirable consequence of undermining the work ethic and contributed to a culture of dependency. The disdain for state handouts, no doubt, was exacerbated by the brief period when Singapore was part of the Federation of Malaysia, during which the People’s Action Party (PAP) was embroiled in a bit- ter dispute with the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) dominated Federation, over the privileged status of the Malays as the indigenous community of the new society. The subsequent ejection of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965, over the PAP leadership’s refusal to concede that migrant aspirations should be subordinated to indigenous rights, made the leaders even more determined that the city-state, which possessed only human capital derived signifi cantly from migrant communities, should stand on its own feet. The conviction they held, that welfarism would eventually sap the energy and dynamism of its citizens, was confi rmed by the success of its economic policies. By the 1970s Singapore was committed to full participation in a competitive and export-led economy, and welcomed the presence of multinational corporations (MNC) in playing a critical role for this purpose. Between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, Singapore’s economic growth was among the highest in the world. Near full employment was achieved by 1970 and real per capita income was doubled in the 1970s. Singapore, the newest member of the exclusive club of the much vaulted dragon economies of the 1970s, in part, rode on the wave of what Esping- Andersen (2001: 832) described as golden age capitalism. It participated TONG_f2_1-20.indd 1 2/7/2008 1:36:14 PM 2 tong chee kiong and lian kwen fee in an economy that could absorb masses of low-skilled workers on simple assembly-line production, churning out mass-produced goods, for which there was massive demand. By the 1980s, the advanced economies of the West were undergoing a transformation that would have far reaching consequences on how they would tackle employment and manage programmes of social amelioration. Variously described as the coming of the post-industrial society, the post-industrial economy, the post-industrial revolution, de- industrialisation, and more recently a knowledge-based economy, these societies faced new challenges that required new responses to social policy and to the welfare of their citizenry. These challenges have arisen, Esping-Andersen contends, as a consequence of critical technological and demographic changes. The fi rst of these, drawing on the work of Daniel Bell, is the signifi - cant loss of manufacturing jobs, as the economy shifts to a knowledge- intensive one with a premium on professional and technical services (Esping-Andersen, 2001: 832–833). The shift to a knowledge economy does not spell the end of the low-skilled labour market, for there will always be a demand for low-end, low-productivity and routine jobs in personal and social services. However, workers at this end of the labour market will have to contend with low pay, unemployment, and uncer- tainty (Esping-Andersen, 2002: 2). The labour market will be highly polarised and the consequence, noted by Lian Kwen Fee in the next essay, is a ‘dual’ or ‘two-speed’ society, consisting of a competitive but potentially rewarding sector and a marginalised sector. Hence, Esping- Andersen continues, there will be a new set of winners and losers; the latter will be particularly vulnerable to social risks and insecurity, that their low and semi-skilled predecessors in the post-war manufacturing economy were shielded from. In particular, stress-related risks will come to the fore in the new economy and those, who fall victim to such risks, are likely to experience long-term marginalisation in the labour market (Esping-Andersen, 2002: 22). The second, but no less critical, development that has marked the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial society in the West, is in demographic and family behaviour. Declining birth rates and low fertility, accompanied by an aging population, have created huge demo- graphic imbalances. Very small working-age cohorts are now a feature of such societies, raising serious questions about the ability of the State to sustain and manage an aging society. Related to this is the ongoing gender revolution (Esping-Andersen, 2002: 20). The educational quali- TONG_f2_1-20.indd 2 2/7/2008 1:36:15 PM social policy issues in a post-industrial society 3 fi cations and economic participation of women have continued to rise. Marriage is increasingly the result of personal choice and bringing up children is no longer the preserve of the conventional two-parent family. Furthermore, Esping-Andersen (2001: 841) suggests, families seem no longer inclined to bear the full costs of child-rearing. In painting this scenario and identifying some of the challenges to welfare regimes, Esping-Andersen is referring to the advanced Western economies. Are there signs of convergence in Singapore, and will the State come under increasing pressure to provide substantial allocation for social protection and amelioration in the 21st century? On the surface, it appears so. Since the 1960s, manufacturing and services have unsurprisingly been the backbone of Singapore’s economy. The contribution of manufacturing to its gross domestic product (GDP) grew steadily from over 16% in 1960 to 29% in 1990 (Huff, 1994: 302–305). The tertiary or service sector (defi ned in three categories: a) transport and communication, b) fi nancial and business services, and c) public administration, community, social and personal services) consistently contributed over