Class and inequality: Cultural Poverty and Singapore
In 2004, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said that poverty was humanity’s “greatest scandal and scourge” today. With around half world’s population survives on less than 2 US dollars a day[1] and 40% of the world’s population only account for 5% of the world’s income while the richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of it[2], I think I have to agree with him on that.
Poverty has plagued the world since the dawn of civilisation. Ever since property and wealth ownership has been properly demarcated, there were those who controlled the resources, the rich, and those who were dependent on the resources, very many times they are the poor.
Through the ages, social scientists have come up with many explanations on why people are poor, do they choose to be poor or if it is beyond their controls. One of the explanations they have come up with is that of ‘cultural poverty’. Cultural poverty refers to cyclical reproduction of poverty from generations to generations. To illustrate, a baby being born to a very poor family or society would not be brought up with the nutrients that would help to maximise his potentials. He would be living a poor area with poor sanity and hygiene, making him susceptible to disease. Being poor, he would not have been able to get a proper education and would have entered the work force at an early age. Without proper qualification, he would have got a low paying employment. Without a good income, he would most likely have to rent an apartment for shelter and this rent will put a constant strain on his income. If he was to get married and have a family he would be even more financially strained and would not be able to support his family. At this point, his off springs would start to live a life similar to his and the cycle of poverty starts again with a new generation. People experiencing the culture of poverty tend to fatalistic as they do not believe that they have any control over their lives, anti-authoritative as they would have lost faith in the governing body to alleviate them from their poverty and be present orientated as they would think only about the immediate present as the future is an uncertainty to them.
Thankfully, this culture is not very predominant in Singapore. Statistics show that in 2006, 18% of the population here earned less than S$1,000 while 6% were earned more than S$8,000[3]. This shows that about a fifth of the country is not employed in high paying jobs and also that Singapore has a very wide income gap. (Singapore’s Gini coefficient in 2006 was 0.472, 0 corresponding to perfect equality and 1 corresponds to perfect inequality)[4]. Even though the sense of poverty experienced by the low wage earners here is nothing compared to the poverty experienced by those in sub-Saharan Africa, I believe it is still significant in the local context as living in a country with a high standard of living like Singapore is not cheap.
I think Singapore has been able to avoid the problem of cultural poverty mainly through good governance and foresight. The Singapore government has many avenues of help for the financially challenged.
One example would be the rent and utilities assistance scheme that is administered by the Community Development Councils (CDC). Another would be the Home ownership plus education scheme or popularly known as HOPE. These schemes relieve the financial burden of living here to the certain extent. These examples are just 2 of the many assistance schemes that the government provides to its citizens. These schemes are very important as they help Singaporeans with, firstly, escaping the routine of the culture of poverty. Newer generations of Singaporeans are given opportunities that were not available to their seniors. Secondly, they will not feel fatalistic as they have more control over their lives and feel that they can shape it the way they see fit. Lastly, they would not be anti authoritative as theses opportunities were provided by those in authority and lastly, they would plan ahead into the future as there is increasing stability in their lives.
Even though the income gap in Singapore seems to be big, increasing number of Singaporeans are starting to earn more than their parents did when they started to work. These new generation of Singaporeans are more educated and qualified because of the opportunities provided for them by the government. This ensures that poverty will not become hereditary and prevents the culture of poverty from growing roots here.
[1] 2007 Human Development Report (HDR) from the United Nations Development Program
[2] Ibid
[3] Reuters – Singapore’s economic boom widens income gap Fri Nov 9, 2007
[4] Ibid
