Social Policy in Post-Industrial Singapore

Social Policy in Post-Industrial Singapore
Author: Kwen Fee Lian
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2008-03-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9047433327

Notwithstanding the lean years that followed 1986 and 1997, sustained economic growth since the late 1970s has propelled Singapore into the post-industrial age and reproduced the demographic and social structure of advanced western societies. The rapid shift to a knowledge-intensive economy requiring highly-skilled services has resulted in a 'two-speed' society consisting of a highly competitive but rewarding sector and a marginalized population that is increasingly at risk. Being avowedly anti-welfarist, the state for ideological reasons has resisted pressures to introduce a comprehensive welfare regime for its risk population, preferring to privilege its productive citizenry. Is Singapore a counter-factual to the convergence thesis, by preferring to put in place a social policy driven by the belief of its leaders that the more successful a society is the more it is able to care for those who fall behind?

Social Policy in Post-Industrial Singapore

Social Policy in Post-Industrial Singapore
Author: Kwen Fee Lian
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2008-03-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004166424

The contributors to this edited volume, covering a range of social issues ranging from family and aging to sexuality and culture and the arts, critically examine the relevance of social policy as it is understood in the West; and addresses the question of whether Singapore's response is unique.

China's Social Development and Policy

China's Social Development and Policy
Author: Litao Zhao
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2013-07-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135046867

In China, social development has fallen far behind economic development. This book looks at why this is the case, and poses the question of whether the conditions, structures and institutions that have locked China into unbalanced development are changing to pave the way for the next stage of development. Based on an empirical examination of ideological, structural and institutional transformations that have shaped China’s development experiences, the book analyses China’s reform and development in the social domain, including pension, healthcare, public housing, ethnic policy, and public expenditure on social programs. The book moves beyond descriptive analyses to understand the role of broader changes in shaping and redefining the pattern of development in China.

Social Development And Social Policy: International Experiences And China's Reform

Social Development And Social Policy: International Experiences And China's Reform
Author: Dongtao Qi
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2016-10-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 981473098X

Social policy reforms driven by profound social changes have been a popular and pressing topic worldwide in recent years in both policy and academic circles. In this book, prominent social policy scholars from Europe, North America, and Asia discuss the history of social policies, compare different social development models, and analyze the challenges facing these economies' social policy reforms. The book provides comprehensive and comparative perspectives and updated data on social development and social policy reforms in the world's major economies, and particularly, in mainland China.

Population Policy and Reproduction in Singapore

Population Policy and Reproduction in Singapore
Author: Shirley Hsiao-Li Sun
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2012-07-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1136507817

This book examines the relationship between population policies and individual reproductive decisions in low-fertility contexts. Using the case study of Singapore, it demonstrates that the effectiveness of population policy is a function of competing notions of citizenship, and the gap between seemingly neutral policy incentives and the perceived and experienced disparate effects. Drawing on a substantial number of personal interviews and focus groups, the book analyzes the developmental welfare state’s overarching emphasis of citizen responsibility, and examines population policies that reinforce social inequalities and ignore cultural diversity. These factors combine to undermine elaborate state policy efforts in encouraging citizens’ biological reproduction. The book goes on to argue that in order to facilitate positive fertility decisions, the state needs to modify the “economic production at all cost” approach and pay much more attention to the importance of social rights. This suggests that the Singapore government might profitably approach the phenomenon of very low fertility with major initiatives similar to those of other advanced industrialized societies. This book offers a significant contribution to the literature on social policy, East Asian and Southeast Asian studies.

Art and the City

Art and the City
Author: Jason Luger
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2017-05-18
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1315303027

This book presents a global perspective on the political agency of arts in place. International and leading scholars and artists themselves present critical theory and practice of contemporary art as a politicised force. This book extends thinking on contemporary arts practices in the urban and political context of protest and social resilience and offers the prism of a ‘critical artscape’ in which to view the urgent interaction of arts and the urban politic.

Multiculturalism, Migration, and the Politics of Identity in Singapore

Multiculturalism, Migration, and the Politics of Identity in Singapore
Author: Kwen Fee Lian
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2015-10-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9812876766

This edited volume focuses on how multiculturalism, as statecraft, has had both intended and unintended consequences on Singapore’s various ethnic communities. The contributing authors address and update contemporary issues and developments in the practice of multiculturalism in Singapore by interfacing the practice of multiculturalism over two critical periods, the colonial and the global. The coverage of the first period examines the colonial origins and conception of multiculturalism and the post-colonial application of multiculturalism as a project of the nation and its consequences for the Tamil Muslim, Ceylon-Tamil, and Malay communities. The content on the second period addresses immigration in the context of globalization with the arrival of new immigrants from South and East Asia, who pose a challenge to the concept and practice of multiculturalism in Singapore. For both periods, the contributors examine how the old migrants have attempted to come to terms with living in a multicultural society that has been constructed in the image of the state, and how the new migrants will reshape that society in the course of their ongoing politics of identity.

Welfare Reform in East Asia

Welfare Reform in East Asia
Author: Chak Kwan Chan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2012-11-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1136680055

In many Western countries, social welfare payments are increasingly being made conditional on recipients doing voluntary work or attending job training courses, a system known as "welfare-to-work" or "workfare". Although social welfare in Asia is very different to the West, with much smaller social welfare budgets, a strong self-reliance and a much higher dependency on family networks to provide support, the workfare approach is also being adopted in many Asian countries. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of how welfare reform around work is implemented in leading East Asian. Based on the experiences of seven East Asian economies - including China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau - this book critically analyses current trends; the social, economic and political factors which lead to the implementation of workfare; compares the similarities and differences of workfare in the different polities and assesses their effectiveness.

Singapore’s Multiculturalism

Singapore’s Multiculturalism
Author: Chan Heng Chee
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2019-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429832192

Since independence in 1965, Singapore has developed its own unique approach to managing the diversity of Race, Religion, Culture, Language, Nationality, and Age among its citizens. This approach is a consequence of many factors, including its very distinct ethnic makeup compared with its neighbours, its ambitions as a globally oriented city-state, and its small physical size. Each of these factors and many others have presented Singapore society with a range of challenges and opportunities, and will in all likelihood continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In the writing of this book, the author team set themselves the task of projecting the impact of current domestic and international social trends into the future, to anticipate what Singapore society might look like by around 2040. In doing so, they analyse the particular path that Singapore has taken since independence, in comparison with other multicultural societies and with regard to the balance between the necessity of forging a new national identity after British rule and departure from Malaysia, and the need to ensure that Singapore’s ethnic minority populations remain socially enfranchised. They further consider how current trends may develop over the next couple of decades, what new challenges this may present to Singapore society, and what might be the likely responses to such challenges. In this book, Singapore is a case study of a global city facing the challenges of developed-world modernity in frequently acute ways.

Gangs and Minorities in Singapore

Gangs and Minorities in Singapore
Author: Narayanan Ganapathy
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2023-12-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1529210674

This book is a unique ethnographic study of a racially exclusive Malay Muslim gang, Omega, which has its roots in Singapore’s prisons and controls much of the illicit drug trade in the state. Similar to indigenous peoples elsewhere, Singapore Malays are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system and can respond to structural marginalization and colonization through gang involvement. In demonstrating that gang membership can be an adaptive strategy for minority groups, this book promotes a more inclusive and restorative justice model for people with repeat convictions.