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Ethos Issue 3, Oct 2007
Security with Self-Reliance: The
Argument for the Singapore Model
Lim Xiuhui
SUPPORTING SELF-RELIANCE, PROMOTING
SOCIAL BONDS
Singapore policies ensure that people have incentives to be
self-reliant, and to build and maintain strong family and
community bonds. Incentives, alone, however, cannot be fully
effective if people are willing but unable to act in the way
that we wish them to. Hence, we can structure our social assistance
system to make people want to be self-reliant, but unless
we also help make them able to become self-reliant, many will
try but fail.
For this reason, a large part of our social
spending goes towards training. For example, in FY 2005, the
Ministry of Manpower committed almost S$99 million to fund
training for employees through the Skills Development Fund.4
As a point of comparison, the Ministry of Community Development,
Youth and Sports provides only about S$10 million a year in
financial assistance to those on Work Support, a temporary
assistance programme for those who are work-capable but in
financial hardship.
In fact, Work Support has features to help
ensure recipients are both willing and able to become self-reliant.
Low assistance amounts and strictly-enforced maximum programme
lengths help provide incentives for people to help themselves.
At the same time, training grants, funded by the Singapore
Workforce Development Agency, and case management help ensure
that those who want to help themselves are given the resources
to improve their own lives.
We also make it possible for families to
maintain strong family ties by giving preference to couples
who wish to live near or with their parents in our allocation
of public apartments. We support the growth of a vibrant community
life by providing financial support to organisations who wish
to do their part to help others.
THE SOCIAL VALUE OF SELF-RELIANCE
There is also a positive social argument for the Singapore
Model. The argument is that self-reliance and family and community
support are valuable in their own right. Even if low-income
individuals could be cared for by the state without economic
ramifications, Singapore would be worse off if more of her
people no longer saw value in working hard to support themselves
and in not having to depend on the charity of others.
Even if the state could remove the need
for family members to provide the first line of support for
each other, society is likely to be worse off in terms of
a weakening in family ties and a sense of shared responsibility.
Even if the Government could completely take over the role
of community organisations in providing assistance to the
less fortunate, it cannot deliver assistance with the flexibility
and warmth that community organisations can. The end result
would be a lower quality of life for the very groups we want
to help.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SINGAPORE MODEL
There is no doubt, however, that the Singapore Model is evolving.
Social assistance spending has been rising at a fast clip.
Although the main source of the increase has been on child-related
assistance, we have also been spending more on elderly and
disability services. The Government will increasingly having
to bear the burden of caring for these groups because traditional
forms of support, primarily our families, are no longer as
strong. Widening income gaps and an ageing population will
put a strain on traditional forms of social security and assistance.
The recent CPF changes and Workfare scheme are just some of
the measures introduced to help Singaporeans cope. It is likely
that we will see new forms of social insurance evolving to
meet these very different challenges in the years to come.
Lim Xiuhui was a Social Assistance
Policy Officer in the ComCare and Social Support Division
of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports.
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