Article

Discursive Constructions Journal of Creative Communications

14(2) 132–146, 2019
of Income Inequality in © 2019 MICA-The School of Ideas
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Neo-liberal Singapore in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/0973258619851979
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Ashwini Falnikar1
Tan Ee Lyn1
Somrita Ganchoudhuri1
Mohan Jyoti Dutta1

Abstract
This article examines the discursive constructions of income inequality in neo-liberal Singapore.
While the city-state is touted as a model for smart governance captured in the ‘Singapore model’,
the accounts of everyday lived experiences in Singapore depict the unsustainability of the model as a
template of development, anchored in the deep inequalities interwoven with the model. This article
draws on 34 in-depth interviews with high-, middle- and low-income groups in Singapore, stratified
by race and citizenship status to reflect population demographics. The interviews document the ways
in which inequalities are rendered meaningful amid the interplays of class, race and citizenship status.
Based on grounded theory analysis of everyday accounts of inequality in Singapore, the article attends
to the discourses of (a) individual responsibility and the disappearing state, (b) xenophobia and (c)
paradoxical responses to government policies, simultaneously interrogating the state-espoused values
of multiculturalism, meritocracy and pragmatism.

Keywords
Neo-liberalism, meanings of inequality, Singapore, discursive constructions

Introduction
There has been growing interest in studying income distribution, inequality in wealth and the underlying
causes of the same in the rich Organization for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD) countries.
Lately, interest in studying income inequalities has grown globally, constituted amid a global pattern
of accelerating income inequalities, with greater resources accumulation among a small fraction of the
population while the poorest struggle with meeting their everyday needs (see Kenworthy & Pontusson,

1
Department of Communications and New Media, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

Corresponding author:
Ashwini Falnikar, Department of Communications and New Media, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National University of
Singapore, Blk AS6, #03-41, 11 Computing Drive, 117416 Singapore.
E-mail: Ashwini.f@u.nus.edu
Falnikar et al. 133

2005; Piketty, 1995). Inequality among and across nation-states is an outcome of the accelerated privatization
of the global political economy, following the neo-liberal1 reforms of the 1990s (Dutta, 2015; p. 14).
Singapore, as a model neo-liberal state in Asia, has witnessed growing income inequalities (Abeysinghe &
Wong, 2014); in fact, it is the second most unequal country in the Asia-pacific, after Korea, with the top 10
per cent owning 42 per cent of the total income (Jae-won, 16 March 2016). Singapore’s Gini coefficient2 in
2014 after taxes and transfers was 0.412, which is higher than most of the high-income OECD countries
(Phang, 2015). It is also ranked close to major world cities such as New York and London in terms of its
income inequality, which have income Gini coefficients (after taxes and transfers) of 0.475 and 0.436,
respectively, followed by Hong Kong with 0.43 and Paris with 0.372 (Phang, 2015). The rankings of states
on their ‘commitment to addressing inequality’ by Oxfam international placed Singapore at 149th among
157 countries, a very poor performance because of its tax programmes and absence of state welfare (Yahya,
Oct 9, 2018). High and sustained levels of inequality, especially inequality of opportunity, can entail large
social costs, and entrenched inequality of outcomes can significantly undermine individuals’ educational
and occupational mobility (Stiglitz, 2012).
Singapore is produced and circulated as a model of governance across Asia, embodied in the ‘Singapore
model’. The model, constructed around the concepts of efficient bureaucratic management, state capitalism
and authoritarian control, is deployed towards cultivating and shaping development frameworks across
Asia. The city-state discursively reproduces its ‘smart-city’ idea which optimizes its limited natural
resources using the affordances and networking capacities of information technology, leading to a better
quality of life for its citizens (Bhati, Hansen & Chan, 2017; Ho, 2017; Hoe, 2016). However, which section
of the population benefits from this success remains a pressing question. Confucianism, as an ideology
constructed in relationship to the ethnic majority Chinese population, works as a trope that privileges
harmony, keeping the voices of the poorer sections of the population subsumed in the communitarian
values that legitimize a climate of obedience to power (Englehart, 2000). The relevance of Singapore as a
context for analysis lies precisely in its appeal across Asia and globally as a model for replication.
According to Lim (2015), there is a growing consensus in the social policy arena on the need to rethink
provisions for social security and basic needs for a rapidly ageing population, given real wage stagnation
or decline especially in lower-wage occupations. Relative poverty rates (20% to 22% of the population)
are high in comparison to other East Asian (and developed western) countries, which is an additional
cause for rethinking its social policy. Singapore’s welfare policies, Lim (2015) asserts, have lagged the
developed world, if not the Asian newly industrialized countries, even as declining social mobility through
the educational system and a high rate of inadequate retirement savings present new challenges.
Extant literature draws attention to attitudes towards income inequality (Alesina & Glaeser, 2004;
Kaltenthaler, Ceccoli, & Gelleny, 2008; Linos & West, 2003; Piketty, 1995). Kaltenthaler, Ceccoli, and
Gelleny (2008) argued that individuals’ political attitude, economic self-interest and general attitude
towards society influence their thinking about income equality. With the advent of neo-liberalism, the
wealthier tend to be more in favour of privately owned enterprises and less in favour of the egalitarian-
oriented income distribution policies of the government (pp. 226–233). The neo-liberal policies sustain
these attitudes, and Singapore is an example where neo-liberalism has spurred the economic growth, but
also given rise to inequalities. This essay takes an interpretive approach towards understanding the
meanings of income inequality in the cultural context of Singapore.
Neo-liberalism, which this article argues is the model of governance in Singapore, developed as a
counterforce to the rising tide of collectivism, state-centred planning and socialism in the post-World
War I era (Ganti, 2014). Reviewing the historical development of neo-liberalism as a model of global
governance through multiple phases, Wilson (2017) argues that neo-liberalism is far from a natural
way of governance and organizing; it is a political project that was systematically struggled for and
won (p. 23). The author traces its gradual rise to hegemonic status through four phases. It came into
134 Journal of Creative Communications 14(2)

being through the initial theoretical development of its tenets by a handful of economists, its later
institutionalization in university departments in the United States and United Kingdom, and its
infiltration into the cultural domain through a bevy of philanthropic and charitable foundations and
think tanks and financing bodies. However, the global spread of neo-liberalism came after the devasta-
tion of World War II when the struggling economies were offered loans, technical expertise and other
development programmes through International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. The neo-liberal
project took shape through structural adjustment programmes reorganizing economic policies of the
countries that availed loans. The role of the state within the neo-liberal project is observed by Harvey
(2005, pp. 64–86) as strongly favouring individual private property rights and by extension, freedom of
businesses and corporations (legally regarded as individuals). The adherence to ‘trickle down’ effect of
free trade and free markets is the primary solution for eliminating poverty. Yet, while personal and
individual freedom is guaranteed in the marketplace, each individual is held responsible and accountable
for his or her own actions and well-being, while the obligations of the state to provide for the welfare of
its citizens have diminished.

‘Asian model’ of Development and Inequality in Singapore

Singapore’s development trajectory is considered to be miraculous, earning it a place among the four
Asian Tigers. Yet, Singapore is a unique example because of its multi-ethnic citizenship and history of
colonization (Henderson, 2012). It has experienced strong economic growth for many years, an outcome
that has led at the same time to a growing divide between its rich and poor (Yam, 2016). Real economic
growth in Singapore in 2014 was between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent in 2014, the year when the world’s
economy was forecasted by the IMF to have grown at 3.3 per cent (Asher, 2015). In the Economist
Intelligence Unit’s Global City Competitiveness Index published in 2012, Singapore was ranked third in
global competitiveness after New York and London and was known as the most globally competitive in
Asia. The fourth position was shared by Paris and Hong Kong, and Tokyo was ranked sixth (Hot Spots,
2012). According to Phang (2015), Singapore is also regarded a ‘superstar city’, a term coined by Joseph
Gyourko, Christopher Mayer and Todd Sinai (2006) and defined as locations with strong growth rates in
real estate prices. As a superstar city, Singapore is ranked fifth in the world, with an annualized growth
rate of 3.4 per cent from 2000 to 2013. Paris was in the first place at 8.7 per cent, Hong Kong was at 7.5
per cent, London was at 6.8 per cent and New York City was at 4.2 per cent. Besides having higher-than-
average house price growth, global superstar cities also have higher levels of economic inequality
(Phang, 2015). In Singapore, the top 10 per cent own 28 per cent of collective income, with the next 40
per cent owning 49 per cent, and the bottom 50 per cent owning 23 per cent (Phang, 2015). The income
distribution ratio in Paris was 25:50:25; London, 28:53:18; Hong Kong, 39:42:19; New York City,
57:33:10; the United States, 43:44:13, according to Phang (2015).
As Sun (2012) argued, the citizenship in Singapore is ‘market citizenship’ conceptualized in terms of
‘duties’ relying on the values of collectivity in place of the state’s welfarism where the economic contribution
to the state by its citizens is valued above all. The compulsory, non-distributive, employer-and-employee-
contributed social security system, the Central Provident Fund (CPF), is an example of the neo-liberal
governing mechanism that relies on the very values of collectivism, citizens’ duty and near-absence of
state’s welfarism, deployed as a macroeconomic tool, with CPF contribution rates adjusted as per the
labour market conditions. The CPF is allowed to be used to fund tertiary education for individuals or for
their children in Singapore itself, pay for their and their dependents’ hospitalization and pay for public
housing. However, the withdrawal limits make it necessary to pay in cash from their pockets. Lower-
income groups and the elderly experience inadequate healthcare coverage in Singapore as Asher (2015)
Falnikar et al. 135

highlighted, owing to high premiums required by its basic health insurance scheme MediShield.
MediShield was replaced by MediShield Life on 1 November 2015, which promises to give better
protection and higher payouts. These effects are yet to be observed. The government has responded
vigorously in recent budgets by increasing social transfers, particularly to the working poor (Workfare),
the elderly (Pioneer Generation healthcare subsidies), the elderly poor (Silver Support Scheme), and
lower-income Housing Development Board (HDB) homeowners (with various schemes to help them
‘age in place’) (Lim, 2015). However, according to Lim (2015), the Singapore government appears
to be still fundamentally averse to social risk pooling, universal entitlements and income redistri-
bution in social policy, despite a long held willingness to provide ever-increasing performance-based
subsidies to corporations under the state’s industrial policy (Tan & Bhaskaran, 2015). Thus, recent
CPF reforms for increasing the wage ceiling, contribution rates, interest rate and payment periods are
still based on self-reliance and individual responsibility for retirement adequacy, while the new
MediShield Life health insurance scheme remains largely based on commercial principles (Lim,
2015). The one-time top-ups in CPFs and S$500 million grant to community care centres for social
welfare expenditures by the state are discretionary payments that do not impose any long-term,
sustained responsibility on the government (Ramesh, 2004, cited in Sun, 2012).
Asher calls attention to inadequate retirement financing, saying that Singaporeans were increasingly
expecting greater social equality and public accountability. According to Asher, policymakers will need to
re-examine their guiding philosophies on service provision by the state, aligning them better with popular
demands for better quality of life. This includes acknowledging that relative, not absolute, poverty matters in
a rapidly ageing and affluent Singapore and introducing a means-tested budget-financed social pension for
the elderly and disabled. According to Asher (2015), there is sufficient fiscal space for such an initiative.
Attracting ‘foreign talent’ to contribute to Singapore economy in the face of shortage of local-born
talent was forwarded as a strategy to make it possible for foreign investors to set up businesses here, and
immigration control laws were liberalized, welcoming foreigners, integrating them into the Singaporean
culture (Liow, 2011). However, these state-level policies, that are adopted under the guise of pragma-
tism, geared towards globalization and towards making Singapore more culturally exciting and tolerant
to diversity, are deeply ideological, as Tan (2012) argued. With 40 per cent of Singapore’s population
comprising foreigners, the policies have consequences on a day-to-day basis, where Singaporeans feel
like second-class citizens, and bear resentment in mind towards immigrants because of their unwilling-
ness to integrate into ‘Singapore way of life’ (p. 86), bringing into question the ‘multiculturalism’ of the
official discourse that in fact breeds tensions. Internally, though, the rise of Singapore after its indepen-
dence and separation from Malaysia is credited to meritocracy, which plays out in the anxieties about the
culture and attitude represented by Malay population that falls behind in the modern life in Singapore
(Tan, 2010, referring to Rahim, 1998). Meritocracy is not a value-free, inert mechanism for distributing
rewards, but it shapes individual behaviours and societal norms. It encourages the me-first mentality,
with the society’s rewards being distributed on relative performance (Low, 2016).
Given the high costs of child-raising, the policies, such as ‘have three or more children’, baby bonus
and infant care subsidy for working mothers, have not seen much success with the total fertility rate
dropping to 1.22 per resident female in 2009, because of the need of nannies to look after the babies
which further increases population density, both parents being working parents, and increased competi-
tion with foreigners further increasing the cost of supplementing school education (Lim, 2016; Sun,
2012). Through its neo-liberal policies, Singapore represents an affinity to a globalizing, culturally
diverse, economically prosperous city; however, its consequences are observed in race- and class-based
disparities and its weaker populations experiencing insecurities. In this article, we examine the everyday
constructions of income inequality among Singaporeans. In doing so, we seek to interpret the discussions
of income inequality in Singapore.
136 Journal of Creative Communications 14(2)

Research Question: What are the discursive constructions of income inequality among Singapore
residents (citizens and [permanent residents] PRs/foreigners) in the high-, middle- and low-income
categories?

Method

Data Gathering
Data for this article was gathered through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. There were 34 participants
in this study: 19 Singaporean Chinese, 4 Singaporean Malay, 3 Singaporean Indians, 1 Singaporean
Eurasian, 1 Singaporean Filipino, 1 Singaporean Indonesian and 6 foreigners/PRs.
We recruited participants from three different income groups on the basis of household monthly income
per person. We used the same categories as provided in the Singapore Medishield Life report (2014) to use
the official income categories. High income was defined as S$2,601 and above per household, lower and
upper middle income was between S$1,101–2,600, and low income was $1,100 and under. Each income
group had 11–12 participants. This study used the convenience sampling method to recruit participants. There
were 15 women and 19 men, and their ages ranged from 20 to 70. The rationale for choosing 34 participants
was to allow sufficient depth and manageability. Each participant was provided with a consent form and an
explanation of the whole study, followed by an interview allowance of $30 after his/her participation. The
interview duration was between 60 and 90 min. Most of the interviews were recorded. When participants did
not want to be recorded, we kept extensive journal notes. The interview questions were centred around age,
occupation, earnings, place of living of the respondents, expenditure, ambitions, problems, their understand-
ing of income inequality in Singapore, their experiences of income inequality, how they dealt with inequality
and its consequences and their opinions of the government policies and access to structural resources.

Data Analysis
The grounded theory approach was used, as it is well-suited to analyse the data, given the emphasis on the
context in the study (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The data was analysed through a systematic use of open
coding, axial coding and selective coding. Line-by-line open coding was followed by axial coding which
involved clubbing the concepts identified in the first step to make conceptual categories. For example, an
interviewee talked about the instances of discrimination because of low socio-economic status: ‘I was
applying for financial assistance. I did so many times but they kept rejecting me and never gave me a good
reason’. This line was marked with an open code ‘discrimination–rejection of financial assistance’ and then
was put under the axial code ‘discrimination (examples)’. Some of the axial codes were ‘discrimination
(examples)’, ‘marginalization’ and ‘global inequality’. Finally, we reached theoretical integration by
selective coding. Data was shared with each other by the authors, and the coding was done after a discussion
among authors to ensure consistency.

Findings
The themes that emerged from the in-depth interviews point to the tensions between different discursive
constructions of the neo-liberal ideology sponsored by the state, at points aligning with the official
Falnikar et al. 137

discourse and at other times, critically interrogating the state discourse. The multiple discourses of
income inequality converge and diverge across the class, race and citizenship formations in Singapore.

Individual Responsibility and the Disappearing State

The neo-liberal dimension of the state ideology in Singapore foregrounds meritocracy as the basis of
mobility. In legitimating the discourse of meritocracy, the ideals of individual freedom and liberty are
upheld as creating the possibilities and pathways to upward mobility, including for those experiencing
poverty. In reproducing the state ideology, participants discursively construct individual responsibility
and merit as the basis of mobility. Lulu, a high-income Chinese, Singaporean woman in her 30s, who
works as a head hunter in the central business district, observes that poverty does not exist in Singapore,
‘Poverty doesn’t exist in Singapore. You don’t have old folks begging for money. There is no one way to
look at it. It depends on the cause. There are certain things that can be controlled, eg. one has to work
hard to make ends meet’. Lulu, who owns a car and half a share in a private property, shares that she
takes about five vacations a year and maintains a lifestyle that is a mix of eating out and exercising and
attributes this lifestyle to hard work. She comes from a racially privileged Chinese background in
Singapore. Chinese is the majority race in Singapore, which carries the label of being hard-working and
earning positions based on meritocracy, but these labels also gain privileges in the job market, in the
army and even in politics as compared to other races, including Malays and Indians. Lulu erases poverty
in Singapore by suggesting it does not exist, constructing a narrative of poverty elsewhere. The imagery
of beggars populating the streets forms the basis of Lulu’s understanding of poverty, and based on this
yard stick, she erases poverty in Singapore. Moreover, she notes that in Singapore, hard work is usually
the answer, reproducing the state narrative of individual responsibility.
However, working hard and economic opportunity have different meanings, depending on one’s
social class and ethnicity. For Raabia, a single mother of five children, a Malay Singaporean, her income
of S$1260 is the only resource to feed the entire family of six and pay the rent. Dividing her time looking
after her children and going to work, Raabia works hard all day, every day. In her narrative, her hard
work is insufficient in enabling her to cover her basic needs. Having noted the insufficiency of her
income in supporting her family, Raabia points to the role of civil society in offering support:

I don’t know, but in Singapore it is open for everybody, there are places you get help. For education and
everything. Easy access. Doesn’t really matter whether how much. Just that earning less, and you have more
people to take care then you have to settle for less comfortable. Smaller house, lesser to spend.

There is a stigma against the poor in Singapore, and the Malay population has been labelled as a laid-
back race. With the responsibility of social provisions for the poor being displaced onto the civil society,
those experiencing poverty often reproduce the ‘helping hands’ approach as the attention is diverted
from the unfair distributive policies which leave out the poor from receiving a fair share of the city-
state’s economic growth and for their own hard work to the generosity of civil society. Stigmatizing the
poor as lazy often works to create consent for unfair distributive measures and to curb the voices of the
poor who work even two jobs and are unable to make ends meet.
Afrina, a 59-year old Malay woman who works as a cleaner and stays in an HDB (government
housing) unit with a son who is unemployed, started working when she was 14. She was educated until
she was in the 6th standard. She speaks broken English and earns a monthly income of S$1k. She
divorced her husband, who worked at a telecommunication company. Afrina says,
138 Journal of Creative Communications 14(2)

I never think of inequality. If you want to become rich, you can become rich. All you have to do is just do hard
work. If you work hard, you can get rich. I have not studied much. For us, we are just cleaner. Some people do
two jobs to earn more money. Sometimes it is difficult. It is tiring.

The perception that Singapore gives a fair opportunity to everybody to become rich is a dream that
has been carefully manufactured, placing the blame of being poor on individuals, certain races and on
personal liability to get education and get a job.
The discourses articulated by Afrina and Raabia are countered by Roy. Trying to make do with less also
means no savings and continuing to work until you cannot work anymore. Roy, a 70-year-old Chinese man
sells newspaper for daily subsistence and has zero savings. For Roy, the hard work never ends.

Yes, you see some people making a lot of money, but a lot don’t. A lot can’t find jobs, the Singapore government
says the economy is very good. I don’t think so. This problem has been here a long time. Inequality has been
here for so long, not only in Singapore, but in Hong Kong, Taiwan. Maybe it is not so serious in Singapore, ‘cos
in Singapore, if you want to work and collect cardboards, you will make some money. The worst is if you are
not healthy, then you won’t be able to make money…for us, we can still survive. We have newspapers to sell,
and we have part-time work. Aunty (his wife) cleans two offices. But we can’t have big fish, big meat to eat. We
can’t compare, we just live from day-to-day…even though the government helps, there is a limit. Even if the
government gives you a drumstick, you have to supply the soya sauce!

Basic survival from day-to-day is considered just as long as the poor and the old are making that
money on their own, even if it means selling newspaper and collecting cardboard at the age of 70. Roy
never stopped working all his life, but his life never changed; there was no money to save. Roy has high
cholesterol and gout, and his wife Lucy has hypertension; however, falling ill or being unhealthy is
something they cannot afford. To continue to survive in their 70s, they need to be healthy and continue
to work the hard job. Their daughter sometimes gives them S$300–500, but Roy says he does not want
to take her money as she has to work very hard.
With the responsibility to earn a better living resting on individuals, the narrative of better livelihood
discursively rests on self-improvement and individual needs for the low-income people. Yan, 25 years
old, is a low-income Chinese female, who stays in a four bedroom HDB flat along with her parents and
sister. Their household income is S$800. She works in an administrative department, simultaneously
studying for a degree at Singapore Institute of Management. She has been working for the past four years
to support her education and family. Her father and mother are retired; her father was a bus driver and
her mother was a bus attender. Her father cannot work any longer due to his poor vision. Yan says,

People should continue to improve themselves. They should keep on working rather than complaining. You have
to be aware of the surviving skills. You have to go out. You should know about the world. You should do research
on the job position and try to get all the skills that are required.

With the state providing subsidized housing, the focus is displaced from her everyday struggles onto
her individual aspirations, feeling apologetic for not upgrading the skills to earn a better living. In this
construction of the experience of poverty, survival becomes a skill rather than an acknowledgement of
poverty, a structurally imposed struggle that only certain segments of the population have to face.
The very same construction of poverty and individual responsibility is offered by a high-income
foreigner, Vishwanathan, earning over S$10,000 a month, who works as a Chief Executive Officer of
‘SMV’ group. He owns a car and a condominium in Singapore and travels around the world, sometimes
to Greece, sometimes Malaysia along with his wife and children to give his two children varied cultural
Falnikar et al. 139

experiences. In sum, 30 per cent of his monthly household income is saved. He believes that improvement
of individuals’ life depends on their individual abilities, aspirations and needs. He says, ‘People’s ability
to take risks. People should have first the aspiration and ability to take risks’. In this framing, his
construction of the amount of individual resources one amasses draws from where one falls in the
hierarchy of needs. He says:

When you operate at the mid hierarchy of needs, I don’t have to worry about my next rice bowl, then my
aspiration to work hard goes down, my aspiration to create wealth goes down, my aspiration to create a better
future goes down because I don’t have a fear of not having a roof and clothing and not having food. So your effort
ratio is lower vis-a-vis somebody who has effort ratio here (gestures to show high level).

For participants in the high-income group, inequality is justified as they attribute success and their high
income to their individual effort and hard work. Note the construction here that keeping the poor hungry
is the way to increase their ‘effort ratio’, so that the state may draw more on their productivity. Juxtapose
this with the backdrop of the articulations of the poor who continue to work more, believing that one day
it will pay off, and if not, their effort was not sufficient. The ideology reproduced here is that the state
should be run like a corporation, which values its citizens only for what they produce, a use-based
citizenship based on market principles. Vishwanathan’s quote illustrates this, ‘Umm, the third element to
it is the skill. If the person has the skill to create a value for himself and the society, so that he bridges the
inequality’. The narrative of skills echoes across the discursive constructions by the low-income and high-
income groups.
High-income locals, similar to the high-income foreigners, justify that certain groups must remain
poor for others to become rich because that is the way world works. Ray, 26 years old, Chinese male, has
divorced parents, stays with his mother, works with his father who owns a business, and holds a bachelor
degree in marketing from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). His hobbies include clubbing,
drinking and eating out every day in a hawker centre and once in two weeks in restaurants. He owns a
three bedroom HDB flat in Bukit Batok and manages to save SGD500–600 per month. His household
income is S$7000 and takes vacations once or twice a year. He is paying a monthly instalment for the car
that he bought two years ago. He has no health problems and volunteers for a food bank. According to Ray,

I think inequality is going to exist. It is not possible to make every nation rich. Like the United Nations always
intervene in any wars since they are strong. There is nothing much that could be done. They are the leaders. They
make the policies and the rules as they are so powerful. I do not think this can be changed because there has to
be leaders and followers. There can’t be a room full of leaders.

The inevitability of inequality in Ray’s quote naturalizes inequality and its injustices. Notice here the
deployment of global power hierarchies in explaining the status quo and naturalizing inequalities. Ray
believes that organizing the world into powerful and the powerless is natural, thus expressing itself in
economic inequality.

Xenophobia
The neo-liberal state of Singapore positions itself as a hub for attracting human capital, relying on
foreign talent; foreign businesses set up offshore offices in Singapore, and cheap foreign labour performs
the low wage, dirty jobs in Singapore. The pragmatic state continually interacts with and negotiates the
xenophobic sentiments that are voiced in accounting for the experiences of inequality. Raymond is a
140 Journal of Creative Communications 14(2)

middle-income Malay, who works as a security guard. He owns a three room HDB and is paying
instalments for it. He lives in the house with his daughter and wife. His leisure activities include
vacationing once a year. He manages to save 10 per cent of his income. He says:

Now in Singapore, a lot of foreigners, they get a good reputation and their salary, very different from
Singaporeans. I like People’s Action Party (PAP, the single ruling party of Singapore since its independence),
I vote for PAP, but now the bosses are foreigners, and I am Singaporean, there is something unfair about this.
They must also think, if you take more foreigners, they will be ahead of us, they will be managing us. We
must have a Singaporean heading us of course. The boss should be Singaporean. You go to other countries, the
same. You can see in Singapore, a lot of foreigners are here, their salary totally different from us. My daughter
was a concierge in Westin; now she is working with Filipinos, she has to get along with them. The head on
top is a foreigner. I don’t know the result, we don’t know, we don’t know if good or bad, or getting worse, I
can’t say it is very good.

Raymond expresses anxiety at the foreign talent holding decision-making positions in Singapore.
While Singapore has earned the respect for impressive development stunning the other East-Asian nations
and earned a top place on the global stage, within Singapore, the imaginaries of the first world and the
third world play out within foreign population and the Singaporeans. Tony, 59 years old, unemployed,
middle income Filipino living in Singapore, was retrenched from a job a few years ago. He says,

In my job, I managed people and in the course of that, there is a question (among his staff), why am I a Singaporean
reporting to a Filipino. A guy from first world taking orders from a third world country. What made you think that
a guy is not right for a credit? When I see it, I think you can give this guy a chance, we were reviewing credit
applications that were declined, this guy knows he is entitled to it, when I look at it, I ask ‘why?’ the staff said,
‘It’s colour of the skin (Indian)’. But I say, we shouldn’t be like this, I emphasize that in credit, we should be
Whiter than White. It took me a year before I got the respect of my staff.

The neo-liberal state strategically deploys human capital to promote economic growth. However,
historical racial hierarchies, including hierarchies deployed in the projection of Singapore in the region
as a model take on a new meaning. Migrations from other parts of Asia into Singapore render visible
these racist hierarchies.
Moreover, the high-income foreigners and low-income foreigners have different status in the
Singapore society. Tony, 38 years old, British male, living in Singapore since 2011, working on employ-
ment pass as a freelance photographer and educator, stays in a condominium and studied and worked in
the United States, observes:

The way migrants are treated, like the domestic workers have to go for frequent (health) check-up. If they get
pregnant by any chance, then they will be deported. So there is inequality in policies like this; this gives support
to stereotypes of certain jobs.

Abdul is a Bangladeshi migrant who works as a cleaning supervisor. He is 50 years old, educated up
till the 10th standard. He has been staying in Singapore for more than 10 years. His brother, who was
working in Singapore, helped him get a job. He stays in company provided place at a walkable distance
from workplace, hence does not have to spend on transportation. His vacations include going home once
in two years. He has five children who are studying in Bangladesh; one of his elder daughter is married,
two sons are in school, and the other daughter is studying in college. He owns a house in Bangladesh. He
hardly eats out, prefers cooking, and has no leisure activities; every month, he earns almost S$950. He
sends home S$450 and uses S$150–200 for food and other expenses required.
Falnikar et al. 141

Our English is also not good. So we do not want to get into any trouble because of any misunderstanding caused
by the language and cultural barrier. Moreover, who are we to say anything. We are outsiders. They are doing us
a favour by letting us stay here and also giving a job, place to stay and medical protection.

Migrant workers such as Abdul are employed in Singapore at a lower wage than local workers.
The notion of ‘Who are we to say anything’ depicts the communicative hierarchy within which low
wage migrant workers place themselves.
Asifa constructs her experience of discriminatory treatment as resulting from her non-Singaporean
status. She is a 56-year-old Malay woman, born in Johor, Malaysia, a Malay PR and works as a street
cleaner on contract with a private agency—not a government job. She works for eight hours daily. She
has to share an apartment with a Singaporean couple, where she is given a room. This is the only way
she can avail an accommodation in a government-subsidized housing. The couple that she shares the
apartment with now harass her.

I feel very sad. When I go home, I take my shower, then I go home. I don’t want to see them. Because it seems
like them—they try to bully me because I am PR. I don’t like it, I don’t like to quarrel. Because we are in a family,
we stay together, under one roof, so I just quiet. Doesn’t mean I am quiet, I am scared too, you know, because I
am older than them. I am 56 they are—the husband is 54 the wife is 49. So this is my problem. So after I finish
my work, I get rest under my block.

Asifa negotiates the bullying she experiences by staying quiet and spending her rest time outside of
the home. The strategy of not speaking up is often articulated by immigrants who are poorer. This
sentiment that fuels xenophobia is articulated by Charlie. A middle-income Eurasian, Charlie, living in
an HDB, takes a vacation once a year to see his grandchildren, spends on food and mortgage, has no
savings, and suffers from health concerns—he has gout and has had a heart attack. He says,

New citizens that they (government) bring in, the foreigners, the so called talent, not the construction workers, or
maids, but the IT people, we have many jobs in Singapore, why give to foreigners? The houses are not expensive,
but Singaporeans can’t afford. Foreigners come here to buy, then they sell, and take the money and leave.

Mary, 38 year old, a middle-income business owner feels that with the policies creating a welcoming
environment for foreigners, lifestyle choices are made available, which influence the culture in Singapore.
She says,

Speed at which we grew, influx of the super-rich, we wanted to grow our population, we welcomed very rich
foreigners, allowed them to buy houses, give them citizenship, our openness, they brought with them their
sophisticated taste, the Michelin starred restaurants, even yoga is different. The trend is different, cos’ we get
influence from the people moving in. The policies also endorse such lifestyles, so they keep coming in.

The interests of the locals are not sufficiently addressed so that the foreigners may remain happy. The
resentment towards PRs and foreigners is a theme that is often articulated in the discussions of inequality.

The State in Everyday Discourse

In the discussions of inequality, the state emerges as a key site of symbolic articulations. Tony, a foreigner,
British, cited earlier, perceives the role of the government in addressing the poverty among the vulnerable
populations. He observes:
142 Journal of Creative Communications 14(2)

Just spend a little bit of time walking around in places like China Town, Little India, Gaylang, you see lot
of people are working on the streets, low income jobs, like doing the recycling things, collecting cardboards,
Singapore narrative is that they have a choice. But do they really have? There is lot of debate around this official
narrative. You see it all the time elderly people collecting dishes. for me it is very visible and stark. If you walk
down Orchard Road you won’t see it. You just have to go to the back alleys behind the restaurant and you will
see, and on the other side you see people with swanky cars. There is a greater gap.

Specific policy recommendations are offered by other participants, for example, Ting, a high-income
Singaporean Chinese, holding a Master’s degree, has stayed overseas, lives in an HDB flat with his
parents and brother, takes two vacations yearly, and has a household income of S$11k. He perceives
the role of the government in providing welfare. He says,

Well, I think currently the government is trying to help the poorer segment... the sense that I get is that they
are making an effort to do it... but I think maybe they can do certain things about the subsidy that they give to
the poor… there is this body called workfare board… it’s like a wage supplement that is given to the lowest
income earners... so if you have certain income, they top up. I think this supplement given by the government
can be increased given the cost of living in Singapore.

The wage supplement that Ting talks about here is the top-up of income for the lower-wage older
Singaporeans. It is meant to reward work and supplement the retirement savings by top-ups in CPF.
These are one-time payments, and not long-term measures.
Charlie, 62 years old, a canteen operator earning in the middle-income category also articulates the
desire for the state to do more. He says:

Government has to listen. They give a lot of excuses, you tell them something, they will give many excuses. It
really has to address old people collecting cardboard boxes, they say they are exercising. Old ladies selling tissue
paper? I don’t think they want to do that. The government has to address it.

The precarity of the older population is often articulated in the many conversations on inequality in
Singapore. Raabia, cited earlier, who cares for her five children alone, while struggling to get a decently
paying job even with the experience she has, says,

Maybe government can do something so private company… they are too picky when choosing people. Could
give everybody a chance, even though they don’t have good qualification, even though they have family, they
have kids, so what. They have reasons to come out and look for a job. They need a job, they need income. Why
not just give them a chance rather than asking one thousand and one questions. (Unclear). They can do something
about that lah. Then that would be great.

For a low-income individual, the role of the state is crucial in addressing his/her daily struggles. She
struggles to earn sufficiently even though she works hard.
Annabelle, a middle income 24-year-old Singaporean Indian woman feels the same. She says:

Middle aged people don’t get better jobs. Like my mother is facing a lot of trouble now to enter the workforce
after taking a break for quite some time. May be the government can set a guideline.

While the state places importance on hard work and promises opportunities for mobility on its basis,
people work without savings, and struggle to find work; also, the narratives suggest that single mothers
and certain races are given less preference in the job market. Participants suggest that these are the areas
where state intervention is needed. Ting, a high-income manager says,
Falnikar et al. 143

I think we are sliding down the path as in the poor are getting poorer. Of course, I think we should emphasize that
this is not happening alone in Singapore. I think it’s happening in many other countries but I do see a danger that
poorer section might get more marginalized in future if nothing is being done.

Even as the state-sponsored neo-liberal narrative of meritocracy is reproduced by a number of

participants, others interrogate the narrative, drawing on their lived experiences and struggles.
Others reiterate the neo-liberal narrative reproduced by the state. For example, Ray, who is 26 years
old, has high income, with a marketing degree, and works with his father in his business, believes that
state welfare is not necessary for the poor. He says, ‘I do not believe in welfare. I feel it is not right la. If
you know someone is going to provide anyway, then there will be less motivation. We have very less
programs like this here. Our government does not believe in it lah and I think it is right’. The interests of
the rich continue to be protected through policies that open up channels to gain profits for high-income
foreigners and locals alike. The absence of minimum wage, however, leads to the hard work of the lower-
income population not being adequate for a decent livelihood.

Discussion
The discursive approach to understanding inequality in Singapore point to the ways in which the neo-
liberal narrative of development and economic growth produced by the state is internalized, reproduced
and challenged at the intersections of race, citizenship status and social class. The narratives point to and
draw from the overarching discourse of meritocracy when articulating inequality. References to hard
work and skills are narrated throughout the discursive constructions. Individualization foregrounds the
responsibility of personal growth in the hands of individuals, where poverty in the fast-growing
globalized city is constituted amid individual attitudes and work ethic. At the same time, narratives point
towards privileges, raced inequalities in access to mobility, and the threat of foreign talent.
Largely, the high-income population discursively justifies the inequality in the city-state, attributing
their success to effort and hard work. Juxtapose this with the backdrop of the lived experience of people
often working two jobs among the poor and still failing to earn enough to save for old age. Older
participants continue to work small jobs such as cleaning tables and collecting cardboard to survive on a
day-to-day basis, while the mandatory CPF savings have strictly regulated withdrawal limits. There is a
certain pride in the high-income population regarding the absence of welfare for the lower income; this
absence of the state from social provisions is the very issue that the participants believe is the cause of
growing inequality. The constructions of poverty and inequality around individual responsibility depict
the trope of neo-liberal capitalism deployed by the state in Singapore (Sun, 2012; Tan, 2012), legitimizing
the growing inequality in the city-state.
The ‘superstar city’ status of Singapore reflected in the lifestyles enjoyed by upper classes, and
reflected in Singapore’s branding, is in stark contrast to the lived experiences of lower-income participants
who have limited to no mobility in climbing up the status ladder. Given their discursive marginalization
on the grounds of race, inherited wealth, a meritocratic education system where meritocracy only serves
the select few, and policy infrastructure that maintains the inequalities, the poor people often reproduce
the individualized narrative even amid their everyday accounts of struggles. The discourses foreground
xenophobia towards the foreigners among the locals amid discourses of laziness of the poor. The climate
of xenophobia renders migrant workers taking up the menial jobs in Singapore devoid of any agency to
speak about the absolute basic minimum living conditions that they have to live in. Phang (2015) and
Yam (2016) have noted that global superstar cities such as New York and London, and recently Singapore,
144 Journal of Creative Communications 14(2)

have high levels of economic inequality. In Singapore, which is considered the model of development to
be followed in the Asian region, neo-liberalism has seeped into the cultural fabric, reproducing income
inequality through the values of meritocracy, individualism, and pragmatism and is supported by policy
infrastructures. The discursive constructions of inequality in this article disrupt the hegemonic ‘Singapore
model’—on one hand, depicting its flows across social classes and on the other hand, foregrounding the
lived struggles with inequalities among Singapore’s margins.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Appendix

Permanent residents and/or

Household monthly income per person Singaporeans foreigners
High income: S$2,601 and above Chinese woman (Lulu) Male foreigner (Tony)
Chinese woman (Talya) Male foreigner (Vishwanathan)
Chinese woman (Tammy)
Chinese man (Ting)
Chinese man (Ray)
Chinese man (Harold)
Chinese woman (Katherine)
Indian woman (Namita)
Indonesian (Susan)
Lower and upper middle income: Indian woman (Annabelle) Male foreigner (Arun)
S$1,101–$2,600 Malay man (Raymond) PR woman (Asifa)
Eurasian man (Charlie)
Chinese woman (Mary)
Chinese man (Harry)
Chinese woman (Wan)
Filipino man (Theodore)
Chinese man (Tian Peng)
Chinese woman (Jacey)
Chinese man (Pinto)
Low income: S$1,100 and under Chinese man (Robert) Male foreigner (Abdul)
Chinese woman (Lucy) Male foreigner (Alec)
Chinese man (Richard)
Chinese man (Roy)
Malay woman (Afrina)
Chinese woman (Yan)
Malay woman (Raabia)
Chinese woman (Kong)
Indian man (Deepesh)
Falnikar et al. 145

Notes
1. Neo-liberalism is a form of governance that is marked by privatization, liberalization and deregulation of trade
(Pal & Dutta, 2013). Although the processes of neo-liberalism are marked by withdrawal of the state from the
provision of public services, the state is present in neo-liberal policies minimizing the role of workers’ unions that
pose a threat to global capital and expanding the markets for global capital. This way, neo-liberalism concentrates
wealth in the hands of the transnational capital while oppressing the working class, poor and subaltern sectors
(Dutta, 2015).
2. Gini coefficient is the most commonly used measure of inequality which represents income distribution in a
country for resident households (Phang, 2015).

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Authors’ bio-sketch
Ashwini Falnikar completed PhD from National University of Singapore in May 2019. Her current
research is grounded in the theoretical commitment to foregrounding subaltern voice.

Tan Ee Lyn was a journalist for 23 years, first with trade publisher Petroleum Argus and then with
Reuters. She is now an instructor at Department of Communications and New Media, National University
of Singapore.

Somrita Ganchoudhuri is a doctoral student at CNM. Her primary research interests are in the field of
health communication.

Mohan Jyoti Dutta is Provost’s Chair Professor and Head of CNM at the NUS. He is the Founding
Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), now located
at Massey University.