Turn our view around and we see that, given the ubiquity of enrichment centers and tutors, some kids – because of class advantages – are advantaged in a system where early exposure and precocity are rewarded. The kids who are able to run forward the moment the gates are open are neither more ‘meritorious’ nor more deserving.”
– Teo You Yenn ^[1]

Meritocracy promises Singaporeans their efforts will not let them down. Regardless of race, language, religion, and most importantly, class, all Singaporeans are promised equal opportunity to succeed. Yet the gates of opportunities seem to fit only a selected few, and the distance to the gates is much closer to some and further to others. If access to opportunities is unequal, how then can meritocracy deliver its promises?

DOES MERITOCRACY CREATE EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES?
The education system in Singapore aptly displays how social capital intersects with meritocratic structures. It is extremely challenging for children with disadvantaged resources to keep pace with their socio- economically privileged peers. If two children at Primary 1 had the same learning style and capacity, went to the same school, studied under the same teachers, faced the same schooling demands and sat for the same examinations, the child whose parents provided a comfortable home, a great preschool education, and the best private tutors would have developed greater precocity than a child whose parents can only provide an overcrowded one-bedroom home, could not provide adequate preschool education, and can neither provide private tutors nor any form of enrichment class. In this situation, the child with greater precocity will naturally have advanced capacity to exhibit greater ‘merit’.

The education system, through major streamlining processes, blindly rewards the exhibition of ‘merit’. If the gap continues to grow, especially if the social capital of the children did not change, their education paths will begin deviating. In the case of great deviation, it will lead to the two children taking completely different education routes. The child with the high socio-economic social capital may be streamlined into the elite route. This route offers opportunities including access to more academically advanced and diverse educators or mentors, and better structural resources such as more advanced syllabuses, science labs, golf and sailing as extra-curricular activities, and so on, resulting in a generation of those with more economically beneficial culture capital. Hence, the more the elite  education course completed, the greater the economic opportunities. In the process, the network of peers and mentors formed by this child will also be more economically privileged. In cumulation, the knowledge, cultural, and social capital created by the child will lead to greater access to opportunities for upward mobility, creating an even greater social and economic deviation between the two children.

This exemplifies how meritocracy in Singapore has yet to create equal opportunity to success. It has created a system where all individuals must play the same game but in different modes. Triumph, for the elites, is at the tip of their fingers while the downtrodden must run a marathon before it even enters their line of sight.

WHAT DETERMINES SOCIAL MOBILITY?
Social mobility is dependent on both opportunities and capacities. The structure determines and creates opportunities, while the capacities of individuals determine and create their access to the opportunities. The structure may exist in the form of government policies, the education system, the economic system, international economy, or even market trajectories. Capacities refer to the different types of resources individuals determine and create their access to the opportunities. These resources include inherent capital, such as inherent intelligences and personality; social capital, such as family ties, mentors, friends and social networks; economic capital, which is either inherited or self-made; and knowledge-cultural capital such as status, knowledge of the system, and language. The better the fit between an individual’s capacities and the opportunities made available by the structure, the greater their access to opportunities for upward mobility. On the contrary, the more ill-fitting the capacities, the more arduous and even impossible the journey uphill. It should also be noted that if an individual has capacities that are significantly economically privileged, they may have the capacity to influence the structure and create opportunities for upward mobility.

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN SINGAPORE
Singapore ranked 20^th out of 82 countries in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2020 Social Mobility Index^[2]. Despite its relatively high placement, Singapore continues to also rank high on many measures of social inequality, such as income inequality, consumption inequality, and education inequality. The Social Mobility Index measures social mobility by measuring access to high quality healthcare, education access, education quality and equity, access and quality of lifelong learning, social protection, technology access, access to work opportunities, fair wages, working conditions, and inclusive institutions^[3]. Singapore ranked top 10 for education access and education quality and equity, which includes measures on social diversity within schools (ratio of students with different socio-economic status, and cultural and religious background) and lack of education material among disadvantaged pupils. The 2020 WEF report noted that Singapore was underperforming on the ‘social diversity within schools’ measure. This can potentially be attributed to the streaming system, school ranking system, specialised schools, and neighbourhood-based placement of primary school students. Singapore is also performing well on employment opportunities (81.8 out of 100), but contrastingly, is significantly underperforming in fair wages (45.1)^[4]. Based on these factors, Singapore’s placement on the social mobility index, despite being high, is not a representative indicator for equal access to upward mobility. In fact, if examined closely there are clear indicators of barriers to equal access.

A similar dichotomy can be seen in the outcome of the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Singapore ranked second, measuring high on reading, mathematics, and science performance. However, Singapore also “measures 4^th most likely to perform worst due to disadvantages in economic, social, and cultural status relative to non- disadvantaged students” on PISA’s index of economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS)^[5]. This demonstrates the privilege and barrier created by social and economic capital in accessing upward mobility.

This reality is further supported by findings demonstrating the influence of social capital in creating access to higher wages. A recent 2023 study by the National University of Singapore, Job (Non) Search, demonstrates the effect of accessing job opportunities through social capital in widening the wage gap between high and low paid work (categorised as professional and non-professional work)^[6]. In both categories of work, the study’s findings demonstrate access to the first job to be strongly determined by educational certification, but subsequent jobs to be strongly influenced by information and access granted by social networks. Unfortunately, non-searching job opportunities (opportunities created by social networks) only brings significant increases in wages to individuals in high paid work but not to individuals in low paid work^[7]. Hence, it creates greater social inequality between workers in the two groups. This reveals another unequal privilege granted to individuals with higher socio-economic social capital.

RETHINKING SOCIAL MOBILITY IN SINGAPORE
Re-examination of structural systems should be equally focused on both creating more equitable economic capital and more equitable social capital. The 2022 Social Capital and Economic Mobility study by Raj Chetty, et. al. has also found economic connectedness, which is the “degree of interaction between low- and high-income people”, to have a strong association with social mobility^[8]. The study findings show that higher degrees of economic connectedness in an individual’s social capital leads to higher chances for upward mobility. Hence, a particular aspect to consider when improving access to upward mobility in Singapore is to improve the degree of economic connectedness within the social capitals of all Singaporeans.

At present, study findings indicate very low degrees of economic connectedness within the general population’s social capital. The 2017 study on Social Capital in Singapore by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) found very limited network diversity (or social ties across different groups) among individuals from different educational status and type of housing, and greater solidarity within each group rather than across groups. This indicates very limited social connection between individuals from ‘elite’ and ‘non-elite’ school backgrounds and public and private housing^[9], implying the source of most Singaporeans’ social capital remain within class lines and hence, exhibiting low economic connectedness.

HOW DO WE CREATE MORE EQUITABLE ACCESS TO UPWARD MOBILITY?
To genuinely create more equitable access to upward mobility, meritocracy’s weakness and the weight of social and economic capital must be genuinely examined and addressed. Otherwise, inequality will continue to worsen, and upward mobility may become a class privilege rather than an equal right.

Holistic measures must be undertaken to reverse the class systems in Singapore. This includes the re-evaluation of the education system, which should include a critical rethinking of the ‘elite’ and ‘non-elite’ education routes and schools, a re-evaluation of the onset of major education streaming – whether it should be extended to the secondary level rather than begin at primary 6 – and increase the diversity of students from different socio-economic backgrounds at all schooling levels, beginning from kindergartens and primary schools. There should also be a major re-evaluation of the economic system, and it must include a re-examination of the categorisation of jobs and their assigned wages, and a re-evaluation of the value of low-paid occupations and their importance to national stability. Measures should also target the re-evaluation of the importance of education certification as a major source of access to job opportunities and the primacy of social and cultural capitals in creating job accessibility.

Additionally, there should be more programmes and initiatives to encourage economic connectedness at the practical and perceptual levels. This is to create greater interaction between peoples from diverse socio-economic backgrounds not only for the purpose of upward mobility, but also to increase national cohesion and trust among Singaporeans.

It is essential for Singaporeans to understand that social mobility is not solely determined by individual effort, as merit is oftentimes the result of access to unseen and under- appreciated capitals. Singaporeans should also re-examine the definition of merit and whether a broadening of this definition is necessary. Otherwise, meritocracy will continue being used as the justification of social inequality, rather than a measure to reduce social inequality. At the end of the day, the question lies in what kind of Singapore do Singaporeans want? Do they want a Singapore which is a home to all Singaporeans, or a Singapore which is home to only the socio-economic privileged? ⬛

¹ Teo, Y. Y. This Is What Inequality Looks Like. Ethos Books. 2018. p. 125
² World Economic Forum. Global Social Mobility Report – World Economic Forum. 2020, January 19. p. 7. Retrieved from: https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Global_Social_Mobility_Report.pdf
³ Ibid, p. 16
⁴ Ibid, p. 26
⁵ Tjin, T. P. Explainer: Inequality in Singapore. New Naratif. 2023, April 28. p.15. Retrieved from: https://newnaratif.com/explainer-inequality-in-singapore/
⁶ Chua, V., and Tan, Z. H. Job (Non) Search. 2023, March 29. See also: Ng, I. Y. H. Symposium on In-Work Poverty and the Challenges of Getting By Among the Young
⁷ Chua, V., Tan, E., and Koh, G. A Study on Social Capital in Singapore. Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore. 2017. Retrieved from: https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/docs/default-source/ips/study-of-social-capital-in-singapore.pdf
⁸ Chetty, R., et. al. Social Capital I: Measurement and Associations with Economic Mobility. SSRN Electronic Journal. 2022, August 1. pp. 1-3. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4177561
⁹ Chua, V., Tan, E., and Koh, G. A Study on Social Capital in Singapore. Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore. 2017. p. 3. Retrieved from: https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/docs/default-source/ips/study-of-social-capital-in-singapore.pdf

Nailul Farah Mohd Masbur is a Research Analyst at the Centre for Research on Islamic and Malay Affairs (RIMA). She holds a Master’s degree in Political Science. Her area of interest includes Islamic political thought, public and foreign policies, and ethics.