Given the challenges associated with obtaining complete data of the socio-economic diversity of Singapore’s top schools, Chua et al.’s (2019) research strategy of using 40 years of junior college (JC) yearbooks (1971 to 2010) as data – to study the influence of neighbourhoods, gender, and ethnicity on elite school enrolment – is therefore a very interesting workaround.
Three newspapers – ST, TODAY, and BT – reported on the same research study by the National University of Singapore on intergenerational “housing wealth”, yet they all failed to interrogate the design and findings of the study (in this vein, to ask the researchers tougher questions about their research) or to question the proposed causal mechanisms linking a Singaporean’s housing or neighbourhood in childhood to his or her future “economic status” (represented by housing wealth).
This roundup summarises the most important news stories around the world in the last two weeks (October 1 to 14, 2019).
“This is What Inequality Looks Like” (2018) by Teo You Yenn galvanised a national conversation on inequality and poverty, yet almost two years later – of no fault of the author – the extent to which the rhetoric has translated into sustainable action is less clear. While the government has introduced policy changes, community groups have started initiatives, and academics have taken greater research interest in these issues, the underlying assumption that Singapore should “lift the bottom, not cap the top” has gone unquestioned.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – the second most cited scientific journal in the world – the study by Ong et al. (2019) examines the relationship between debt relief among low-income individuals and their psychological functioning and economic decision-making. In this vein, it is worthwhile to evaluate the value of quasi-experimentation, to consider how they define and operationalise key concepts, and to share the significance and implications of the findings on social services and policies in Singapore.
socialservice.sg 