Singapore Economic Inequality

By Robin Chan Assistant Political Editor

Much attention given to inequality in Singapore in recent years has focused on income inequality. There is a good reason: Singapore’s income gap, as measured by the Gini coefficient for income, is one of the widest among developed countries at 0.478. 

The Gini measures how income is distributed in a society. The closer the Gini is to 1, the more unequal the distribution of income.

To narrow this gap, the Government has made efforts to raise wages at the bottom and increase taxes on wealth at the top. Among other things, it has given cash handouts and supplemented incomes with Workfare Income Supplements for low-income earners. It is also working with tripartite partners to boost incomes for low-wage sectors. It recently required cleaning companies to follow wage guidelines for cleaners’ starting pay. In addition, the Government has started extracting a bigger pound of flesh from the rich through the tax system. Last year’s Budget introduced more taxes on high-end assets, including luxury cars and homes. Some analysts are predicting more such moves to help lessen the income divide in this year’s Budget on Feb 21.

But the income gap is only one part of what separates the rich from the poor. Another – possibly more alarming – factor fuelling economic and social inequality is wealth inequality, according to a number of recent studies.

Wherefore wealth?

Income often refers to earnings from work, although it can include income from other sources such as rent. Wealth measures income accumulated over time, so it tends to have a cumulative effect over years. Wealth also includes assets in the form of property, stocks and inheritances. All these can grow in value separately from income.

A person with zero income can be very wealthy. A person may have $10 million in assets (and is hence considered wealthy) but can have zero income in a particular year – if he is not working and does not collect rent or dividends from his assets. Income and wealth must be taken together for a fuller picture of a household’s true economic power.

American think-tank Pew Research Centre last December published a report on wealth inequality which said: “Most researchers agree that wealth is much more unevenly distributed than income.”

It cited data showing that the top one-fifth of United States families earned about 60 per cent of all income but owned nearly 90 per cent of all wealth. A separate report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last October said that the ratio of private wealth to national income in the world has more than doubled since 1970. This means wealth is growing more quickly than incomes. “Household wealth is very unequally distributed – even more so than income,” the report said. “In advanced economies, the top 10 per cent own, on average, more than half of the wealth (up to 75 per cent in the US),” it added. This means wealth is “arguably, a better indicator of ability to pay than annual income”, the report said.

Another reason the wealth gap is as significant as – if not more significant than – the income gap is that a build-up in wealth can become entrenched over time and is harder to redistribute.

For example, a rich family with houses worth $10 million can pass them on to their children, who may use those houses as collateral or capital to buy more property or build businesses to accumulate another $20 million for their descendants. And the cycle goes on. 

So while wealth inequality has received less mention in Singapore than income inequality so far, it is arguably an even more important challenge facing our society.

Mind the gap

So how wide is the wealth gap in Singapore?

There are no official numbers on wealth distribution in Singapore. But piecing together different data gives some clues.  A global wealth report released by Credit Suisse last October said Singapore’s median wealth per adult (aged 20 and above) was US$90,466 (S$114,925), which means half of Singapore’s adults had more, and half had less than that amount. But the mean wealth per adult was US$281,764. This adds up the total amount of wealth held by every adult, divided by the number of adults.

This gap between the median and the mean is one of the biggest in the rich world, according to the Credit Suisse report. It implies that much of the wealth in Singapore is in the hands of a few. Unlike the median, the mean can go up significantly if the total wealth is pulled up by a few super-rich individuals. Indeed, the report showed that the top 1 per cent of Singapore’s wealthiest hold more than a quarter of the country’s wealth.

It also illustrated the wealth gap in another way. Some 4.4 per cent of Singapore adults have more than US$1 million in wealth, while 20 per cent have less than US$10,000, the report said.

Of the other 215 countries surveyed, only Denmark and France had both a larger percentage of adults at the very top and at the very bottom, indicating a wider wealth gap than Singapore.

What are some reasons for this vast gulf in wealth?

One could be the property price surge. This is significant given that nine in 10 households here own their homes and the home makes up half of a household’s net wealth in Singapore.

While reports from third parties such as Credit Suisse shed some light on the wealth gap, they are not comprehensive. Associate Professor Poh Eng Hin, who is assistant dean of accountancy at the Nanyang Business School, suggests that government agencies track wealth more closely and release the data. This could come from a combination of numbers from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore and household balance sheet data collected by the Department of Statistics. Panel studies that track wealth of the same family or individual over time would also give a better sense of wealth inequality in Singapore, he added.

Getting a handle

Inequality in wealth has an impact on social mobility. There are reasons to believe that wealth mobility could be even lower than income mobility. That is, the chances of someone from a nonwealthy family staying nonwealthy is high, the Credit Suisse report pointed out. 

Also, an increase in wealth, unlike incomes, is not necessarily directly a result of work. This raises questions about how truly meritocratic Singapore can be. This is why – even though the goal for Singapore is not to equalise outcomes, but to equalise the starting opportunities in life – there is a strong economic and moral case for higher wealth taxes. Apart from helping to reduce inequality, it can also be an efficient and effective way to raise revenue for public coffers, the IMF said in its report last October. “In principle, taxes on wealth also offer significant revenue potential at relatively low efficiency costs.”

The IMF also said increasing progressivity in property taxes is one of the best ways to tax the wealthy, which is exactly what Singapore is doing. This means taxing second and third homes more than the first, and taxing more costly properties at a higher rate. Raising taxes is always a sensitive political and economic issue. 

But with tax revenues needing a boost to match higher government spending on social safety nets – such as the recently announced Pioneer Generation Package – raising taxes on the wealthy is likely to be more effective than raising taxes on incomes alone. Singapore should not be afraid to take the lead in this area. 

Last year, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post said Singapore’s Budget – and its imposition of higher wealth taxes – posed questions for Hong Kong’s own fiscal options: “The Singapore way may not be ours, but it does raise the question whether our top tier of wealth or income should be seen to pay more to help bridge inequality. It is a debate in which the wealthy should take part, in the interests of the city in which they prospered.”

The same can be said for Singapore. After so much focus on income inequality, it is time to kick-start a discussion on how the wealthy can contribute more to bridge inequality.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Feb 11, 2014

Copyright © 2014 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.

Published on Feb 11, 2014

Youth in Revolt

by Gordon Brown  | January 14, 2013 12:00 AM EST

Why protests in India and Pakistan herald a trend.

The new year has begun—just as 2012 ended—with young people on the march. Literally. This week it is young Indians, shocked by the murder of a medical student, who dominate the street rallies that are demanding proper protection for women against rape. 

A few weeks before, it was thousands of young Pakistanis who responded to the shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, forming the majority in the mass protests calling for an end to the discrimination that locks girls out of school.

 Defying doom-laden forecasts that social progress is not possible in today’s fragile world economy, 2013 is likely to be marked by a rising number of demonstrations for young people and by young people—demanding that their rights be taken seriously and opportunity be delivered.

For these recent assertions of their rights by young people in Pakistan and India are not isolated incidents but part of a new wave of change. In Bangladesh, would-be teenage brides and teenage boys are now, for the first time, leading grassroots campaigns to declare their communities “child marriage-free zones.” Even before the Indian rape, Nepal had been witnessing widespread demonstrations condemning violence against women. In Burma, a campaign against child trafficking brought 200,000 young people to that country’s first open-air pop concert of modern times. And again in India, a march against child labor was led by 100 boys and girls who, at ages as young as 8, 9, and 10, had been rescued from bonded labor.

Of course, the outrages we have witnessed in India and Pakistan would certainly have evoked an angry response at any time—but, left to adults alone, the protests would almost certainly have come and gone, to be filed in the category of one more terrible rape, one more awful shooting, one more disgraceful act of violence against girls.

What is new is that today’s generation of young people have themselves become far more assertive in demanding that their rights be upheld than the adults who are responsible for watching over them.

If the years 2010 and 2011 signaled the start of a rights revolution led by young adults in the Middle East and North Africa, in the years 2012 and now 2013 the rights of even younger girls and boys are being thrust on to the agenda by teenagers themselves. After decades of adult complacency dominated by a false assumption that progress to end child exploitation—whether it be child labor, forced marriage, or discrimination against girls—was only a matter of time and somehow inexorable, it is the victims of the world’s inaction who are forcing the world to wake up to the reality that change will only happen if it is made to happen.

And, fortunately, there is no sign of this demand for change abating in 2013. Late last year, more than 2 million signed petitions calling for free universal education in Pakistan, not least because of the campaigning genius and technology of the activist group Avaaz, which rallied the international community in response to Malala’s shooting. But in the first few days of 2013, 1 million Pakistani girls and boys who have themselves been denied education have been signing an updated petition demanding urgent action on their behalf to deliver basic schooling. 

An anti-child-labor petition, also supported by Avaaz, calling on India to end child slavery has already attracted 600,000 signatures—mainly from young people themselves. The organizations V-Day and One Billion Rising have called for young women in Africa and Asia to rise up on Feb. 14 and be part of what they call “a catalytic moment” to demand an end to violence against females. Young women in Africa, from Kenya to Somalia to Ghana, are planning what, for thousands, will be their first-ever major demonstrations against rape and violence.

And, as a result of this growing and insistent pressure from young people, long-delayed, long-overdue change is starting to happen. Next month, the Indian Parliament will be under pressure to vote to outlaw, for the first time, all child labor for children under 14. Following a decision last month by the Burmese government—prompted by a great philanthropist, Andrew Forrest, and the anti-slavery organization Walk Free—to sign a historic agreement to outlaw all forms of slavery, a host of other countries are being pressed into change. And the world’s 27 largest multinational businesses, worth $5 trillion in sales, are now also under pressure from Walk Free and young people who are demanding that by April this year they pledge to remove slave labor from every part of their supply chains—or face criticism and, potentially, boycotts or direct action.

So why in these austere financial times, when the world is reeling from low growth, high unemployment, and financial volatility—and when you might expect a pause in progressive change—is a movement for basic rights that might have expected to do better in times of affluence starting to flourish?

The answer lies in the very nature of the changes wrought by globalization itself. Today’s globalization is characterized by two massively transformative forces: first, the free flow of capital and second, the global sourcing of goods and services, both of which play a key role in opening up the world. And, in their wake, globalization is being defined by a third force: our capacity to communicate instantaneously with anyone, anywhere in the world. Of course, there is a huge and as-yet-inconclusive debate about the difference new media made to the Arab Spring—but what is undeniable is that, with the Internet, mobile phones, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube unlocking an infinite set of opportunities for people on one continent to talk to people on another, we can never return to the times a decade ago when, in many countries, sentries stood over fax machines to prevent outside influences from infiltrating their nation. 

And it is this, our ability to know, share, and compare knowledge and experience across old barriers and all frontiers, that is now showing it has the potential to radicalize a new generation. In places where for centuries your rights have been only what your rulers decreed and your status and wealth what someone else ascribed to you, young people are asking questions. In countries where for centuries it was accepted that if your grandparents and parents were poor you must be too—and if you were born without the chance to flourish, so too must your children and your children’s children be—young people are saying this is not the way they see it. In continents where, if you were a girl, you were inevitably trapped in the circumstances of your birth, all your life’s choices dictated by ¬centuries-old patriarchal assumptions, young people are starting to defy the ancient ruling orthodoxies and to assert that, irrespective of gender, race, or religion, every single person has basic rights, that power derives from the people, and that the duty of the state is to meet your needs, uphold your rights, and advance your opportunities.

And as young people find out more about what is happening to other young people, their aspirations rise and they start to discover the emptiness of some of the central claims we have made about the benefits of globalization. For every day the myth that we are now in a world where there is opportunity for all who aspire and strive—that we are all now, somehow, free to rise as far as our talents and work can take us—is being exposed.

And as young people compare their experiences with others across the globe, they are discovering that the vast inequalities in their material circumstances are not so much to do with how intelligent they are, how much merit they have, or how little or hard they work, but where they were born and whom they were born to.

That is why at the heart of protests from the Arab Spring to the Global March Against Child Labour in India to the campaign for child marriage-free zones in Bangladesh is a rejection of the view that one’s status at birth is a permanent condition. Instead, we are starting to see an assertion of the truth that what should matter is not where you come from but where you are going, and that, even if we cannot shape our original circumstances, we can at least shape our response to that fate. It is a demand for opportunity founded on a desire to be treated with dignity—¬regardless of where or to whom you are born. If we are not careful it will unlock a generational battle—between an older generation who will try to hold on to their social security, health, and pension benefits, irrespective of what is happening to youth employment, and the young, who will feel pushed out of the free education and employment opportunities that previous Western generations of young people had as a right.

This growing global consciousness poses some difficult questions for the richest countries too. We will be asked why, when we know that as much as 80 percent of global inequality is due to birth and background and that education is the one real driver of equality of opportunity, there is still so little international support for investment in education.

We will have to explain why our patterns of educational spending compound rather than correct or compensate for these inequalities—why, for example, we invest just $400 on the education of the typical African child from birth to 16 compared with $100,000 for a Western child; why a paltry $14 is the total amount of all annual international aid supporting that African child; why London, with a population of 8 million, has almost 20,000 girls in the final year of secondary education and South Sudan, with a population of 10 million, has just 400.

You do not need to subscribe to the politics of envy—indeed, I have never believed that for some to do well others have to do badly—to agree that bridging the gap between what young people are and what they have it in themselves to become is what Condoleezza Rice has called “the civil-rights issue of our generation,” and that mobilizing the talent of their young through better schools and higher teaching standards is the only sure way of unlocking the potential of the poorest countries in the world.

An April summit in Washington led by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Jim Kim will require concrete action from off-track countries to move children from the exploitation that is leading to today’s protests to the education that is now denied but can help correct this. A century ago, in his younger, more radical days, Winston Churchill talked of the gap between the excesses of accumulated wealth and what he called “the gaping sorrows of the left-out millions.” We will hear more of this in 2013—and it will come from the voices of youth.

Mind... the gap

The Straits Times Published on Apr 06, 2013

The nature of inequality is changing and the pressure to take from the rich to give to the poor looks set to grow. Rachel Chang dissects the challenges ahead.

THE millennium was a turning point for economic inequality in Singapore.

From the year 2000, an income gap that was narrowing turned the corner and began to widen. The wages of skilled, top earners began to pull away from unskilled workers at the bottom, whose incomes stagnated. This is the story of inequality in Singapore that the Gini coefficient alone - the most widely used measure of inequality - does not tell.

Singapore has always had a high Gini coefficient of over 0.4 due to its open economic structure. The Gini coefficient plots inequality from a scale of zero to 1, with zero representing completely equal incomes across a population. Singapore's Gini actually rose more briskly in the 1990s - from 0.408 in 1990 to 0.442 in 2000, than in the noughties, when it went to 0.472 in 2010.  But it is only in the past decade that a gulf has opened up between skilled and unskilled workers.

Globalisation and a technological boom have powered the "skills premium" that highly qualified workers command worldwide. In Singapore, it collided with local factors of an economic restructuring, a liberal intake of cheap foreign workers and an ageing demographic to explosive effect.

Singapore Management University economist Hoon Hian Teck's research shows that from 2000 to 2010, the economy moved decisively away from manufacturing to high-end services. For example, foreign direct investment in the manufacturing sector, as a ratio of gross domestic product, shrank from 36 per cent to 21 per cent over this period, but grew in its financial and insurance services sector from 36 per cent to 43 per cent. This exacerbated the skills premium for high-end workers as demand for them grew faster than supply, he explains. 

The millennial turning point is also reflected in the ratio of average incomes of the top fifth of earners compared to the bottom fifth. This fell from 14.4 in 1980 to 10.1 in 2000, before U-turning. It has risen through the last 10 years; as of last year, top earners made 13 times what bottom earners made. 

Thirteen years after its turning point, inequality has entered a new phase of urgency, say observers. Unlike in the past, notes Nominated MP Laurence Lien, income inequality is no longer set to a backdrop of a "rising tide that lifts all boats". Then, "most individuals and families felt that their plight was improving all the time and social mobility was higher", says the chief executive of the Lien Foundation. Now, there is wage stagnation and some depression, not just for those on a low income, but for a wider group.

The 'inequality' word

FROM 2000 to last year, as the wage gap grew, the word "inequality" was conspicuously absent from the Government's annual Budget statement.Competitiveness, rather than redistribution, was the order of the day. Following a global trend, top income tax rates were lowered throughout the decade from 28 per cent in 2000 to 20 per cent in 2006 for economic attractiveness.

But last year, the "inequality" word reared its head - three times at that, in Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam's Budget speech then. This year, he said it five times.

More noticeably, his rhetoric was sharply different.

In 2011, responding to MPs' concerns over the income gap, Mr Tharman said that "(income inequality) is something we should be concerned with. But what matters most is not income inequality itself, but whether we succeed in raising incomes and living standards for all Singaporeans, including and especially the lower-income groups".

In this year's Budget, which promised more social spending while hiking taxes on luxury cars and investment properties, Mr Tharman said that inequality is growing everywhere - but "it matters more to us because Singapore is not just a city but also a nation. We must take further steps to temper inequality". Observers see a new direction - and a new determination - in the Government's redistributive efforts.

In the past few years, it has curbed the inflow of foreign labour, cajoled companies to invest in enhancing productivity, and expanded its skills training programme to "upgrade" workers.  

It is also redistributing significantly straight from government coffers to low-income and older workers' pay cheques, through schemes such as the Workfare Income Supplement, the Special Employment Credit and the Wage Credit. 

"The Government deserves a lot of credit for really pushing the restructuring this time. There is a lot of resources being put in here," says Institute of Policy Studies research fellow Tan Meng Wah.

But economists and experts point to blind spots, and say it remains to be seen if the Government's new zeal can keep up with inequality's own momentum. The effort to boost productivity should raise incomes, but "this does not mean that nothing else needs to be done because rising wages is only one part of the problem", says the chief executive of Centennial Asia Advisors, Mr Manu Bhaskaran. The retired, elderly poor, for example, will not benefit from higher wages - but will suffer the inflation that comes in tandem, he notes. This group, who are both old and poor, will continue to grow in what Mr Tharman has said is a unique, local challenge.

Due to Singapore's rapid development, unskilled workers are largely also ageing ones. Of those who did not complete secondary school in the workforce, two- thirds are aged 50 and above. That Singapore is now on the ageing downswing overall has also made its inequality more visceral, says Dr Tan. "When you are 20 years old and you see large differences in income around you, it's okay. You're young, you can work harder and achieve that. But when you're 50, it's a different dynamic," he notes.

Inequality is a vicious circle of its own. Dr Tan notes that the income inequality of earlier decades has led to a "wealth gap" now, where the rich enjoy a steady stream of investment income that the poor do not. This wealth gap "has an even greater psychological impact because we live so close to one another", he notes. National University of Singapore economist Hui Weng Tat points to a perfect storm of high costs of living and high aspirations: "For a developed economy where educational and aspirational levels of a large proportion of the population are high, and affordability of major essentials such as housing and private transport seems to be slipping away... significant resentment will undoubtedly be focused on the extent of inequality that exists."  

Studies have found other psychological effects of inequality, such as reduced work morale and lower productivity, he notes. "The disillusionment and disappointment inevitably will be expressed at the polling booths."  Former chief statistician Paul Cheung says that a new "social distance" has emerged in Singapore in the last decade, one which may be unbridgeable. "In the past, you have HDB blocks next to the rich enclaves. Now you have enclaves that even the middle class can't access, such as Sentosa Cove and other 'high-class' places." 

Dr Cheung, now a social work professor at the National University of Singapore, adds: "Social class has become more distinct and stratified. This is a serious issue for Singapore as it underpins all political and social changes."

Tweaking social assistance

DURING the previous term of government, social spending rose from $13 billion in 2006 to $21.5 billion in 2011. Currently, low-income families get $4 in transfers for every $1 they pay in taxes. But there still exists a wide public consensus that the Government is not redistributing enough, and is too tight-fisted in its social assistance.

A part of this is philosophical. Still evident in its new progressivity is the Government's enduring ideological commitment to self-reliance and aversion to handouts. Almost all of its major new redistributive schemes are tied to being employed, and it has ploughed resources into early childhood education and adult skills training.

Its "humanitarian" assistance - that is, handouts - remains minimal. Public Assistance, given to the elderly with no one to depend on and who cannot work, is $450 a month, after a $50 increment in this year's Budget. The Lien Foundation's Mr Lien says that the Government can be much less conservative in how it manages its social assistance programmes, like in its use of endowment funds. It uses a percentage of investment returns from the reserves to set up such funds. Then, only a percentage of these funds is spent per year: a "doubly conservative" method that ensures that much less is spent on social assistance than is available to be spent, he says.

Mr Tharman has expressed the view that rather than being conservative, this guarantees such social assistance programmes beyond the current term of government - insuring them against the vagaries of populist pressures and economic cycles. While government transfers have grown in Singapore, this factor brings its Gini coefficient down by only about 6 per cent, from 0.478 before transfers, to 0.459 after. This is a far smaller magnitude than the 30 per cent downward effect that other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries achieve on average, says Prof Hui. Boosting transfers will help acceptance of income inequality, adds SMU's Prof Hoon. This is because inequality is then seen as a necessary way to generate the fiscal resources needed to subsidise the disadvantaged, he says. 

But some People's Action Party (PAP) backbenchers urge the Government to continue to stand firm against the political wind. "Big and broad transfers might give you a lot of political capital, but where does that take the country in 20 years' time?" says Moulmein-Kallang GRC MP Edwin Tong. He argues that social assistance needs to be targeted and means-tested, as opposed to blanket handouts. He says: "Once you start giving, it's much harder to scale back. Look at what's happening in the West. Why do we think we might be different?" PAP MP Liang Eng Hwa (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) says the Government's expansion of social spending and redistribution may not keep up with growing public expectations because it must distil a general "call for more" into sustainable programmes.

In his response to MPs after the Budget debate this year, Mr Tharman emphasised that the Government will not attempt "progressivity or redistribution for its own sake"; spending better is as important as how much it spends, he added. "This 'Government must do more' thing is naturally everybody's call," says Mr Liang. "Every Budget debate, MPs call for more, and that's because we see that there are really those who need more. But it's also the Government's job to make sure that when you do more, you're doing something that's responsible and sustainable."

The rise and rise of social issues

By Elgin Toh     The Straits Times    Published on Apr 06, 2013

AT THE close of the Budget debate last month, a social issue - abortion - emerged somewhat surprisingly as a subject of animated discussion among Singaporeans. Three MPs had called for adoption to be promoted in place of abortion, prompting many to jump in with their views. If one measures in terms of ink spilt, the issue can be said to have trumped many bread-and-butter ones, including, say, free early morning commuting, which arguably affects many more people. Forum letters on abortion published by the three most-read newspapers outnumbered those on free commuting by more than two to one. 

Abortion, of course, can be a lot more emotive than many economic issues. The latter tend to be impactful but dry. But it may be a mistake for us to miss the larger trend which this latest observation seems to be a part of. In the last few years, debates over social issues have been generating more heat than ever - confounding the traditional stereotype of Singaporeans as a cold, calculating, money-driven people.

"It's the economy, stupid!" should apply in Singapore more than in many other countries, according to the stereotype. And while I wouldn't go so far as to pronounce the death of that dictum here, it does look like some circumspection is in order.

The first major incident indicating this trend was the casino debate, which began in 2004 and has continued to the present time.

Supporters of the casinos saw the issue as an economic one, about jobs and revitalising tourism. But the "No" camp, led by religious groups, emphasised the social fallout - what it would mean for families and societal values. This group was far more active in its ground-lobbying efforts, forming online groups like Facts (Families Against the Casino Threat in Singapore) and distributing bumper stickers that said "Casi-NO".

Not long after this came the debate over Section 377A of the Penal Code, which outlaws homosexual sex between men. A parliamentary petition was submitted by then Nominated MP Siew Kum Hong, who had garnered 2,500 signatures. The grassroots on both sides of the fence became much exercised, setting up rival websites (repeal377a.com and keep377a.com) and organising more petitions.  The agitation shot through the roof, culminating in then NMP Thio Li-Ann - a strong advocate in the "keep" camp - filing police reports over abusive and threatening e-mails sent to her.

But even this argument did not surpass the next one in its level of unadulterated antagonism.

In 2009, a leadership struggle broke in the women's group Aware (Association of Women for Action and Research) over the group's stand on homosexuality and sex education, among other things. A final showdown between the warring factions was marked by disorder, fierce taunts and shrill heckling.

Finally, burgeoning interest in social issues is also reflected in the Pink Dot movement, which gathers at Hong Lim Park annually to champion equal rights for gays. It has, remarkably, managed to attract a larger crowd every year since its inception in 2009.

If it can indeed be said that Singaporeans are beginning to pay more attention to social issues - especially those related to values - then it has to be asked: What accounts for the phenomenon?

Our increasing affluence is one factor. When there is food on the table, people tend to focus on other concerns.

The parallel rise of religious conservatism and secular liberalism is probably an important factor too. The population census from 2010 shows that the two fastest-growing groups in Singapore are the Christians and those who profess no religion. It would be wrong to over-generalise on this point. There are religious liberals and secular conservatives and some of them may also be worked up about social issues. But anecdotal evidence from the big debates cited above tells us that more participants were probably drawn from religious groups on the conservative side, and from those who held a strictly secular vision of public life on the liberal side.

Furthermore, these groups sometimes engage in one-upmanship, with one side tending to galvanise its activists when it senses that its vision is in danger of being usurped or sidelined. One recent example was when a Christian group sought a meeting with Law Minister K. Shanmugam after learning that he had met gay activists.

These developments will not be lost on the political parties. The People's Action Party (PAP) has thus far been pragmatic. It is reaching out to all groups and pointing out sometimes that it is merely deferring - reluctantly even - to majority opinion.

It is not yet clear what the Workers' Party's (WP) strategy is. The party opposed the PAP on casinos, but decided not to oppose it on Section 377A, citing a lack of consensus within the party.

If social issues continue to rise in salience, then there may come a point where parties are tempted to take stronger stands on them for political advantage. An exercised segment of the electorate, after all, may be seen as a vote bank ripe for the picking - especially for opposition parties, who, being out of power, may engage in political entrepreneurship. And if one political party takes a position, it may be difficult for other parties to avoid doing so.

But there are potential pitfalls.

First, it is difficult for a party to jump onto the conservative bandwagon without alienating some liberals, and vice versa. They also risk turning off some moderate voters who may view position-taking on controversial issues as a sign of stridency.

Careful calculations will have to be made to ensure that any move does not lose more votes than it gains.

Second, parties will also have to consider internal dynamics before taking the plunge, or they risk a split. They will have to persuade members of the leadership to go along with the position or, in cases of deep personal conviction, to allow for individuals to dissent or to stay silent.

Whether parties finally decide to function as champions of a particular view or as neutral brokers between the camps, we will be strengthened as a nation if these issues are settled peacefully within existing political processes.

After all, in any society, politics is the final arena of negotiation between divergent values.

elgintoh@sph.com.sg