arm race education

When Education Minister Desmond Lee announced his ministry’s Education Conversations recently, one phrase gave the exercise its real weight: the education “arms race”.The Ministry of Education (MOE) can review examinations, admissions and pathways. Yet an education arms race is sustained by social behaviour as much as by policy, and policy alone cannot fix it.MOE has recognised this directly. At this year’s debate on his ministry’s budget, Mr Lee warned that the fixation on grades and achievements “diminishes the joy of learning”, “takes away time from character building”, and “pits our children against one another”. He also said MOE is prepared to review milestone examinations, Direct School Admission (DSA), and secondary school posting.That is a significant opening. The harder question sits with all of us.Stress over PSLEA 2017 study by the Institute of Policy Studies found that while many parents valued character education and believed every school is a good school, they still placed weight on academic results. Some 70.8 per cent cited helping children with tests and exams as a source of stress or anxiety, and close to three in four saw high Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) scores as an achievement-centred indicator of a good school.More recent data points in the same direction. A 2024 CNA survey of 1,000 parents of Primary 5 and 6 pupils found that 99 per cent said good PSLE scores were important, 85 per cent said their children were stressed about the PSLE, and 64 per cent said they themselves were stressed. It also found that 60 per cent sent their children to tuition classes. Among them, 65 per cent sent their children to three or four classes.Each family may feel it is acting responsibly. Collectively, these choices intensify pressure for all children.This is not irrational. Parents compete because the stakes feel real. Popular schools are oversubscribed and balloted. Property listings and housing fliers routinely advertise proximity to sought-after schools as a selling point. Many parents believe that doing well early keeps more doors open later, from school placement and subject choices to future admissions pathways.A recent National Institute of Education study reported how advantage can compound: even among students with similar PSLE scores, those from better-resourced families made greater academic gains later. This is how meritocracy risks hardening into what then Education Minister Chan Chun Sing has called an ‘inheritocracy’ of privilege: when inherited resources shape who can convert effort and ability into recognised achievement. A family that eases off alone may worry that it is disadvantaging its own child. The arms race endures because stepping back feels risky unless others do so too.The pressure can returnMOE has already seen how policy changes can be blunted by social behaviour. When mid-year examinations were removed to reduce the overemphasis on grades and create space for more engaging learning, some parents turned to tuition centres that offered mock mid-year examinations. While the formal pressure point was removed, competitive behaviour reappeared elsewhere.The same culture is reinforced beyond the home. Relatives shape what children hear. Alumni networks influence how schools are spoken about. Employers signal which credentials count. If society professes support for multiple pathways while treating some schools as clearly superior, policy change will be quietly undone.The real question for the Education Conversations, then, is not only what MOE should change. If they are to embody a We First approach, they must also ask what schools, families, employers and the wider community are prepared to do differently. How can Singapore keep high standards while giving children more room to develop the curiosity, character, creativity and confidence they will need beyond school?When policy meets realityDSA reflects the challenge. It was designed to recognise talent beyond exams and broaden merit, giving students room to develop their strengths. But it began with a small group of highly sought-after Integrated Programme schools, and those roots still shape how it is seen. If families read DSA mainly as an early entry point to the most sought after schools, expanding it will not ease the arms race – it will only add lanes to the same race.The issue is not a lack of interest. Applications from Primary 6 pupils rose from 9,000 in 2018 to a record 16,000 in 2024. Yet, in 2023, only about 11 per cent of pupils entered secondary school through DSA, well within the 20 per cent that MOE set aside. Some of that capacity went unused even as applications climbed.Fierce competition and unused capacity can coexist only if demand is lopsided – possibly suggesting that it is concentrated on a familiar handful of schools while places elsewhere go unfilled. If that is the pattern, the binding constraint is not the number of DSA places. It is how narrowly families define a place worth wanting. Adding places would not relieve the squeeze unless parents and students also gain the confidence to choose schools beyond the established names, including those without the history of the original Integrated Programme schools. The shift required is as much in public imagination and confidence as in policy.Expansion must also keep DSA true to its purpose, and here a cleaner principle helps: two tracks, kept distinct. Singapore already has an academic route into secondary school – the PSLE. DSA should be the other: grades-blind, and focused on talent.More on this topicMOE considering changes to PSLE to slow down education ‘arms race’Inside Singapore’s education ‘arms race’: Stress, inequality and the push for change However, Primary 5 results are required for DSA applications. This means the same instrument may end up serving two objectives at once: recognising talent while also signalling academic standing. That blurs the purpose of DSA. Schools may reasonably want assurance that students can cope with their programmes, but that assurance should come through PSLE and posting-group eligibility, rather than folding academic records into the talent route.The aim should be to help more children flourish in schools suited to their strengths, including schools that may not carry the strongest public prestige. That requires broadening DSA in two ways: making it more accessible as a pathway, and giving families confidence that choosing a school for fit, not prestige alone, still keeps doors open.PSLE remains the perennial challenge. Since the early 2010s, Members of Parliament across party lines have returned to the same question: can Singapore reduce the weight of one examination at age 12?Full subject-based banding addresses part of this challenge after posting. It gives students more flexibility in secondary school, so PSLE need not define their learning level across all subjects. That helps, but posting still sends a powerful signal to families about school environment, peer group, programmes and future opportunity.Through-train pathways ask a sharper question: should some children be able to continue to secondary school without sitting the PSLE at all? Mr Chan explained the trade-off clearly in Parliament at his ministry’s budget debate in 2025. Removing PSLE alone may not reduce stress if competition simply shifts earlier to P1 registration, or later to the O and A levels. Such pathways may still deserve serious consideration, but they raise hard questions on selection criteria, late bloomers, and social mixing.PSLE and Through-Train Programme – Minister for Education Chan Chun SingMOE SingaporeWatch onSo, the issue is not simply whether Singapore keeps or removes one high-stakes exam. It is whether reforms can give families confidence that children can still be stretched, grow strongly and keep good future options open beyond the most sought-after schools and routes. That weighing cannot be MOE’s responsibility alone. It belongs to all of us.Arms races rarely end because one party steps back. They end when enough people trust that others are also prepared to change. In education, that means parents, schools, employers, community groups and students talk not only about what MOE should do, but also what each is prepared to stop doing, start doing, or value differently.Citizens, employers, students, parents and non-parents should be asked, and should ask one another, what they prefer, what they can live with, and what they are prepared to give up.From feedback to collective actionThe next step, then, is shared action. The Conversations should ask more than what MOE should do next. They should ask what the rest of us are prepared to do.First, MOE could convene Singapore’s first students’ panel on the future of education, involving upper-primary, secondary, post-secondary and special education students from diverse backgrounds. Unlike a focus group, it should not simply ask students for reactions. Students would examine balanced evidence, question resource persons, hear from peers with different experiences, deliberate on trade-offs, and produce a short report setting out where they agree, where they differ, and what they wish society better understood. If the Education Conversations are about students’ futures, they should be held with students, not only for them.Second, add a call-to-action phase. The Conversations should invite each segment of society to make a tangible difference.More on this topicSingapore’s education reset has started well. Now for the hard partWhy many won’t admit they took the direct school admission routeEvery Primary 5 child and parent could be encouraged to visit at least five secondary schools, including some they would not otherwise consider. Like the National Day Parade National Education Show, this would create a common rite of exposure: families could see different school cultures, programmes, student journeys and forms of excellence for themselves, instead of relying only on reputation and recommendations.Alumni networks could support clusters of schools, not only their own alma mater, so that mentoring, donations and opportunities do not accumulate only where they are already strongest. Employers, community groups and industry partners can widen students’ exposure through mentoring, partnerships, internships, service opportunities and school-based projects.The true test of the Education Conversations is not whether they produce policy recommendations, but visible commitments from society that endure.MOE can adjust admissions, reduce assessments and widen pathways. Yet education culture is shaped in quieter places: at dining tables, in WhatsApp chats, at alumni gatherings, and in how we speak about “good” schools. That is where the education arms race often finds new life.If we want children to have room to grow, adults must help create that room.That is how the Education Conversations can become more than another consultation. They can become a step toward the We First society we say we want to build.•Nicholas Thomas is research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore.

good question

Some professions are defined by questions. Detectives ask them, and suspects have the right not to answer them. A phrase like “I’m the one asking the questions” sounds appropriate when coming from a journalist, and pretty weird from the lips of a plumber.But questions are crucial in every organisation. They sharpen thinking and extract information when things go wrong. They are central to forging relationships: According to research by Karen Huang of Georgetown University and her co-authors, people who ask more questions tend to be better liked.Questions are a crude way to measure career progression. As you get more senior, you spend less time doing the work and more time asking about it. By the time you reach the boardroom, your principal output is questions.An absence of questions may indicate a culture that does not brook them. Even easy questions can be a warning sign. A paper by Elliott Ash of ETH Zurich and his co-authors trawls through interview reports posted to Glassdoor, a workplace review site, and finds that candidates are more likely to turn down high-wage job offers when they rate the interview process undemanding. By analysing free-text posts about interviews, the researchers find that candidates view softball questions as a signal about the quality of future colleagues. Tough questions are not just a way for employers to screen for able candidates; the reverse also applies.What makes a good question obviously depends on the context. The “five whys”, a succession of “why” questions that are meant to lead to the root cause of a problem, originated in Toyota and has spread from there. But what works well as an investigative technique in a specific environment is not going to help with forging relationships. (“Why were you absent yesterday?” “I was at a funeral.” “Why?” “What do you mean, why?”)Still, some rules of thumb work across different settings. Paying attention to the answer is always a good idea. Lots of people ask questions in order to supply their own piece of information, a phenomenon christened “boomerasking” in a recent paper by Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School and Michael Yeomans of Imperial College London.If you ask someone where they are going on holiday in order to tell them that you are heading to Bhutan for the trip of a lifetime, you are boomerasking. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t land well: The researchers find that questioners are seen as insincere if they are not interested in the other person’s answer. (Some people don’t even bother with an interlocutor, conducting a Q&A session with themselves while others watch in puzzlement: “What kind of questions do I like? Rhetorical ones. Do I want anyone else to answer them? No. Do I struggle to make friends? Yes.”)If you are making comparisons, the consistency of questions matters. Unstructured interviews make it harder to judge between candidates and easier for bias to creep in. Take, for example, the funding gap between male and female founders. Investors tend to ask different questions of entrepreneurs depending on their gender: men are more likely to be asked about their start-ups’ growth potential and women are more likely to be quizzed about risks. By systematising the evaluation framework used by an early-stage investment platform, Amisha Miller of New York University and her co-authors eliminated, and even reversed, investors’ preference for all-male teams over female-founded ones.Yet asking the same bad question of everyone is not particularly useful. Another paper, by Nandil Bhatia and Wei Cai of Columbia University and Sameer Srivastava of the University of California, Berkeley, identifies the ingredients of a good question.The authors trained a large language model to identify what they call “curveball” questions, which they define as questions that are difficult to predict, and therefore hard to prepare for, but also relevant to what has come before, and therefore tough to dodge.They then analysed earnings-call transcripts at listed American firms, and found that curveball questions from analysts were associated with larger share price movements and rating changes, presumably because they were likelier to elicit new information than other questions.The researchers also found that star analysts and analysts who were new to covering the firm were more likely to ask curveballs. The stars can draw on expertise. The newbies are not yet immersed in conventional wisdom. Both lead to better questions. © 2026 THE ECONOMIST NEWSPAPER LIMITED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.More on this topicThe secret reason bosses want everyone back in the office every day of the weekSingaporeans’ disengagement at work may be a saving grace

underpaying taxes for about 400k per year

Sign up for ST InvestMe and unlock full access to exclusive insights and financial literacy courses today.SINGAPORE – A doctor declared monthly salaries of around $5,000 and $6,000 from his companies, but did not pay any personal tax on additional payouts averaging over $2 million a year.He claimed there was no need to declare the additional income because the sum was received as tax-exempt dividends and “shareholders’ loans” after his companies paid the standard corporate tax of 17 per cent on their profits.This doctor, a private specialist, thought he had a foolproof arrangement that would shield him from higher personal income taxes. Income beyond the $1 million mark would have hit the highest personal tax bracket of 24 per cent.But it was the taxman who got the last laugh.After scrutinising past assessments between 2013 and 2018, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) deployed its most powerful weapon – Section 33 of the Income Tax Act – which can shoot down any arrangements that are created mainly to avoid tax.It imposed additional taxes on the doctor’s overall income, which the High Court upheld despite the doctor’s challenge.Under the personal income tax regime, someone earning $6,000 monthly would have been taxed less than $3,000 a year, but taking home $2 million could entail over $400,000 in taxes annually.The decision has likely sent shockwaves through the league of high-income earners who have been using company structures to avoid paying more personal taxes.The doctor was among 279 high-income earners IRAS has caught to date for using sham arrangements to avoid paying more taxes.An example of such an arrangement involves setting up companies to receive income but paying owners salaries below market rate so that they can pay lower taxes.As companies enjoy various concessions to encourage entrepreneurship, the owners will end up paying less tax on their profits than individuals earning the same amount.The companies then channel the after-tax profits to the owners in the form of dividends, which will not be taxed again. In some cases, the payments are given out as “interest-free loans”, which are not taxable, provided these are debts that have to be repaid.In the current case, the doctor received over $9 million in dividends and another $3 million in interest-free loans during those six tax assessments.But IRAS invoked Section 33 to disregard his arrangements and assess the payments as the doctor’s own income.The doctor appealed against this decision, but the court dismissed his case and upheld the use of Section 33, noting that no taxpayer can escape assessment of tax on income resulting from his effort by assigning his income to another party, such as his company,As the income was deemed earned by the doctor, IRAS could claw back the appropriate tax amounts that should have been payable over the years, while providing some adjustments for the companies which had paid taxes for its “profits” before the avoidance scheme was discovered.Here are three important lessons that all taxpayers should know so that they do not run afoul of the law.More on this topicIRAS nabs 279 high-income earners over sham arrangements to pay less taxHow a dentist tried to hide $765,000 in income from IRASHard to avoid detectionThe tax regime in Singapore is largely self-reporting, and all income earners are responsible for accurately complying with their tax obligations.For many employees here, the tax season is a non-event because their employers report their income directly to IRAS, which calculates the taxes due and informs the taxpayer.The self-employed file their own returns. For this group, it does not pay to under-report your income because you can end up losing more, or worse, be prosecuted for tax evasion for hiding income.As all income data through the years is stored digitally, it is very easy for IRAS to detect any anomaly in your returns.For instance, the doctor in the current case used to draw a monthly salary of over $45,000 when he was working at a government hospital.When he left to set up his own clinic, he paid himself a monthly salary of only $5,000, claiming that the business had yet to take off. A few years later, he paid himself a monthly salary of $6,000 through another company, but received large dividend payments and loans on the side.When IRAS flagged his case, he did not explain why his salary remained way below his government pay cheque even after the practice had become more profitable, or why he paid himself huge dividends and shareholder loans.This led the court to find that he did not increase his salary because he had used his corporate arrangement to pay himself huge sums of additional income through his companies to avoid more taxes.Setting up companies with no commercial purpose   Besides a relatively low corporate tax rate of 17 per cent, companies here enjoy various tax concessions so that they can reinvest profits into their businesses to pursue growth opportunities and business ideas.These concessions aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship are not meant to enrich those whose sole purpose in setting up companies is to avoid personal taxes.The court found no evidence that profits from the doctor’s companies had been used to pursue new ideas or expand the business, and that the companies had instead been used just to receive income and shield against liabilities.Another doctor probed by IRAS in the same audit had even used her company to invest in a commercial property.More on this topicAvoiding ABSD with sham 99-to-1 deals can cause you to lose the propertiesIRAS catches 422 landlords for not reporting rental income properly As a result of the court’s ruling, IRAS might take a closer look at the doctors’ corporate expenses, because it found that the fees for providing administrative and support services for one of the companies appeared disproportionately high when compared with the amount paid for the medical services provided by the doctors.Hiding behind professionalsWhen things go wrong, people may push the blame to others, saying they acted on the advice of their lawyers or accountants.In this case, the doctor claimed that he had followed his accountant’s advice on the set-up of his companies and that he was unaware of the specifics of the tax advantages he gained.The court noted that if the arrangement had a genuine commercial purpose and was not aimed solely at avoiding taxes, the doctor could have asked his accountant to testify, as showing that his arrangement was done in good faith would have exonerated him.But the doctor did not ask the accountant to give his side of the story.High Court Judge Alex Wong noted that he found it concerning that the doctor had been in contact with his accountant but did not clarify how the arrangement could impact his liability.“At best, (the doctor’s) evidence shows that he turned a blind eye to what his tax obligations could be in the hope that legal consequences would not follow. I fail to see how this approach can be used to justify the position that the arrangement falls outside the ambit of Section 33,” the judge added.Clearly, the lesson here is that it does not pay to create an artificial scheme just to avoid taxes, because the taxman will pick up on your paper trail sooner or later.•Check out The Straits Times InvestMe microsite for exclusive content and courses to boost your financial literacy.More on this topicRethink wealth and build a meaningful life at the July 18 InvestMe eventRetire with more money? Learn how to grow $1m in your CPF from the first InvestMe event video

how to support your child in e small minor ways

SINGAPORE – The FIFA World Cup 2018 kicked off a few months before my firstborn sat his PSLE.As a die-hard football fan, he was far more enthusiastic about tracking every score than tackling his revision.He would pore over sports sites and devour newspaper coverage instead of working through the practice papers.Navigating a national exam for the first time as a parent, I was concerned that he was watching matches when he could be brushing up on, say, his Chinese.“You’re taking the PSLE this year,” I cautioned him. “Are you sure you should be watching the match?”His matter-of-fact reply: “How can I not watch? The next time the World Cup happens, I’ll be in Secondary 4.”He reassured me that he would buckle down to study after the tournament ended.Realising that stopping a strong-willed child from watching would likely backfire, I simply reminded him to make sure he did not drop the ball when it came to his exams.Creating the conditions for successWhen my two older children, now 20 and 17, were in primary school, I was more involved in guiding them through an exam.While I avoided sending them for tuition until they asked for help with Chinese in upper primary, I supported them in other ways.From the time they started having school exams in lower primary, I got them a simple monthly planner. I taught them to mark out the exam dates and plan out revision topics.I encouraged them to start revision early, but left them to decide what and how much they wanted to tackle each day.Occasionally, they left revision until the last minute and faced the natural consequences of their results not meeting expectations.Having the autonomy to plan their schedule gives them a sense of control, which in turns helps to improve motivation. Learning from natural consequences is also another source of motivation.While I do not send them for academic enrichment lessons, I believe in setting them up for success. For example, I got them practice papers and helped to organise them into labelled files, so they knew where the resources were when they needed them.A child may not be organised by nature, but having things easily accessible makes starting revision easier. So I help where I can.I often remind them that it is not about the quantity. There is no point rushing through practice papers without learning from mistakes. I would rather they take the time to go through the errors so that they do not repeat them.More on this topicIs it too late to help my child do well in the PSLE?September school break: How to help your children manage exam stressAt home, I tried to ensure their study space was free from distractions and reminded their youngest sister, now 10, to lower her volume when it came to exam periods.We also set goals together, discussing secondary schools they were keen on and could likely qualify for. Having a clear aspiration gave them the impetus to work harder.Different strokes for different seasonsBy the time my teens moved on to secondary school and beyond, the support I gave looked quite different.I no longer knew their exam schedule or syllabus by heart and had to trust that they had internalised the habits we built in primary school.It seemed to work. They would do their own planning, filing and scheduling.I continued to provide support, from getting them a tutor for the subjects they needed help in to buying them 10-year series.More importantly, I provided moral support by checking in with them regularly, and often, just being a listening ear when they felt stressed out.My words of advice didn’t always land the way I hoped.When my son was in junior college, I shared with him that I quit TV the year I took my A-level exams, and suggested that he delete his games and social media. He didn’t.So I did the next best thing and supported him in whatever way I could.He would study at the library daily until closing. When he got home late at night, I would greet him at the door if I wasn’t asleep.On weekends, I would cook him a hearty lunch before he went out to study, to make sure he got at least one nutritious meal a day.Support looks different for every child.When my daughter sat her O levels in 2025, it meant buying her favourite treats and simply being home in case she needed to talk. I also reassured her that as long as she tried her best, her papa and I would be happy with whatever results she got.Knowing that she had our unconditional support helped her stay motivated, she told us later.More on this topicExam guide for parents: How to better support your anxious teenagersJC or poly: How I guided my daughter to make a choiceManaging expectations, finding a balanceChildren’s needs vary, so it helps to be attuned to what is required.A self-motivated child might need reminders to prioritise sleep and mental well-being over marks. Conversely, a child struggling with motivation might thrive knowing that progress is still possible in the time remaining.Making time for hobbies is also vital. For my son, the World Cup was a powerful incentive to finish his work early. It provided a necessary break and something to look forward to.There is a lesson here for us parents.Much like in football, we are like the coaches. We lay the groundwork, provide the resources and offer unwavering belief.But ultimately, the pitch belongs to them. Whether they score or miss, our job is to remain their biggest supporters from the sidelines.More on this topicMaking memories that matter during the June school holidaysPSLE, DSA scheme, among topics raised at MOE engagement session

being rich is successful

Sign up for ST InvestMe and unlock full access to exclusive insights and financial literacy courses today.SINGAPORE – Should success be rated based on the amount of money you have?The majority of Singaporeans who took part in a recent survey did not think so, but about 40 per cent of them still felt that wealth equals success.As a result of such a stereotype, those who worship money more often end up stressed and unhappy when they feel they are still far from achieving their financial goals, such as accumulating more than $1 million.Ironically, the regional “Rethink Healthy” survey by insurer AIA is not even focused on financial matters but on how people can improve their lifestyles so that they can live healthier for longer.The survey also covered China, Thailand and Malaysia, but only those polled in Singapore linked personal well-being to financial success.As a result, AIA noted that “many in Singapore continue to feel pressured by the expectation of equating personal worth with wealth”.To make matters worse, those who hold this view are at risk of making financial mistakes, because they tend to believe they know better than others and are doing the right things.For instance, 63 per cent of them do not believe in seeking advice from financial experts, and 72 per cent would actually dismiss verified and accurate information as fake news.This explains why many people continue to lose their savings to investment scams, as they probably think they can make more money than others.Instances of stereotypical thinking are also seen regularly on social media whenever there are new reports on how some Singaporeans are building up large CPF balances or when they receive high monthly payouts from CPF LIFE.Those people would dismiss such reports as fake news or government propaganda, when the reality is that many prudent Singaporeans will top up their CPF accounts after learning to plan for a higher retirement income.If you are stressed over money while you are still working, imagine how difficult it can be when you no longer have an income.This is why all of us need to consider having a solid backup plan like CPF LIFE, which can provide a good and stable income for life, because it is certainly not easy to plan for a decent retirement income on your own.Here are three findings from the survey and what you should learn from them.Wealth and successBeing a high-income earner does not mean one is wealthy.There have been many cases of high-income earners going bankrupt after overspending or taking on excessive debt to support businesses that ultimately failed.In a stark reminder that no amount of money is enough if you spend like there is no tomorrow, the High Court heard a divorce case recently involving a top executive who drew a monthly salary of over $88,000.When the court combed through his assets, he was found to have only about $13,000 in savings in his bank accounts. This sum was certainly not enough to pay for an outstanding personal debt of over $300,000.He could not accumulate any savings because he needed at least $50,000 for his own monthly expenses, while his former wife and children needed another $30,000 every month.What this means is that you won’t know whether people are wealthy just by looking at their lifestyles or the type of car they drive.More on this topicGen Zs less hardy than their parents, regional survey findsHow three S’poreans lost their savings by investing in unsuitable financial products Someone driving a big car might have bought it with a huge loan, which is still outstanding.In contrast, those who drive small cars could well be cash-rich, simply because they are prudent enough not to spend $100,000 to $300,000 more on a bigger car.All of us would be poorer if we started to rate a person’s success based on wealth alone, because it would mean that the group of foreign criminals recently jailed for money laundering would be regarded as highly successful for amassing wealth of over $3 billion.Instead, these crooks faced public condemnation for flaunting their ill-gotten gains by buying multiple luxurious properties and expensive cars.Indeed, the ones who are truly successful and deserve admiration are the hardworking law enforcers who work tirelessly to prevent criminals from abusing Singapore’s financial system.Finally, legendary American entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie believed that rich people cannot be described as successful if they kept everything to themselves only.He famously said the “noblest possible use of wealth” would be to help lower-income workers who are keen to improve their life skills, such as by contributing to their “enlightenment and the joys of the mind”.More on this topic‘I feel poor’: S’pore’s young professionals are earning good money, but feel financially inadequateJourney to a million: Young Singaporeans on the fast track to ‘financial freedom’ bare all The price of filial pietyMany seniors are less well off than their children, perhaps because the older generation was less savvy about planning for their own retirement.Many people in China believe it is the children’s duty to ensure their parents are well taken care of, with the AIA survey noting that those who do not support their parents financially are usually branded “ungrateful”.While Asian culture leans heavily on filial piety, there is no denying that financial pressure is heavier on the sandwiched class – adults who have to take care of their parents and children.To make matters worse, a past survey by AIA Singapore found that many parents here tend to sell themselves short by prioritising their children’s expenses, leaving little for themselves.This probably explains why many parents in their 70s or 80s end up having not enough money to even take care of themselves.Instead of counting on the next generation for your retirement and blaming them for failing to support you, first prioritise planning for yourself so that you can be financially independent.Doing so means you will not have to rely on others, and can even provide some assistance to your children if they encounter cash-flow problems.The cost of staying healthyWhen it comes to staying fit, the prevalent thinking in Malaysia suggests that it requires “big financial investment” to do so.This is because many young people do not mind signing up for gym membership or paying substantial sign-up fees to take part in high-impact fitness activities.Many people also spend top dollar on health supplements and special diets to boost their intensive training.While there is nothing wrong with spending money to make yourself feel better, you should never use cost as a reason to stop you from leading a healthier life.For a start, having a balanced diet, reducing salt and sugar and eating in moderation can go a long way towards improving your health.Of course, it is never too late to plan for free and regular outdoor activities for yourself, such as brisk walking or jogging along park connectors near your home.All of us have read stories on how seniors in certain countries such as Japan can still work in their late 80s and 90s because they have led a healthy and active lifestyle all their lives.They certainly do not need to spend on fitness activities or a special diet because they have been eating healthier meals from a young age.Finally, having enough money is important, but the most valuable thing in life should not be our wealth because life is certainly better when we are always happy and healthy for as long as we live.After all, the happiest people often do not have everything, but they always make the best of what they have.•Check out The Straits Times InvestMe microsite for exclusive content and courses to boost your financial literacy.More on this topicJuly 18 event: Invest to Live, Not Live to InvestRetire with more money? Learn how to grow $1m in your CPF from the first InvestMe event video

wealth inequality is creeping up

Here’s a statistic on wealth inequality in Singapore that might make you sit up: The average wealth held by the top 20 per cent of households is about $5.3 million per household, more than 18 times that of the bottom 20 per cent, which is $293,000.The average wealth of the top 20 per cent also dwarfs the average wealth held by all the percentiles of the bottom 80 per cent added up, which totals around $3.5 million. This does not mean the top fifth owns more than the other four-fifths combined, since the latter group is far larger. But it signals a meaningful and troubling disparity in wealth per household.The source is an Occasional Paper on Income Growth, Inequality, and Social Mobility Trends issued by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in early February. The MOF candidly acknowledges that the wealth of the richest group may be underestimated because people tend not to disclose sensitive financial information or have difficulty recalling details – which means inequality may actually be higher than the estimates suggest.Singapore’s overall Gini coefficient for wealth stands at 0.55, meaningfully higher than the income Gini coefficient of 0.38 after taxes and transfers. (The Gini coefficient runs from 0 to 1; the higher the figure, the greater the inequality.) The shift towards higher wealth taxes seen in recent budgets is, in that light, entirely logical.Capital Is pulling away from labourBut there is a deeper structural force at work, one that wealth taxes alone cannot address. The mainstreaming of artificial intelligence since 2022 has accelerated a trend that was already under way: the returns on capital – financial assets in particular – are running far ahead of wage growth or even economic expansion.Since those who are already wealthy hold the lion’s share of financial assets, they are compounding their advantage compared with the rest of the population, which depends primarily on earned income.The economist Thomas Piketty, in his landmark book Capital In The Twenty-First Century, captured this dynamic in a simple but powerful formulation: r > g. When the rate of return on capital (r) exceeds the rate of economic growth (g), inequality will inexorably rise. The data from the past three years show that this is exactly what has been happening.In the US, where AI first took off, the trend is dramatic.From 2023 to 2025, the S&P 500 – a reasonable proxy for returns on capital – rose by 86 per cent. Over the same period, nominal wage growth came to around 12.6 per cent (less in real terms, after accounting for inflation), while real gross domestic product (GDP) grew a cumulative 8 per cent.In short, the S&P 500 outpaced wages by almost seven times and GDP by more than 10 times.In Singapore, a similar story played out, if less dramatically. Including dividends reinvested, the Straits Times Index (STI) rose a cumulative 62.8 per cent from 2023 to 2025, while nominal wages grew 16.5 per cent and real GDP 10.5 per cent.Capital returns from the STI outpaced nominal wages by roughly 3.8 times and real GDP by almost six times.What is happening, in essence, is a massive redistribution – not from rich to poor, but in the opposite direction: from labour to capital, from wages to profits, from workers to shareholders.And this trend may accelerate in the AI era, which, despite its promising long-term benefits, is likely to displace many workers in the short term, compress wages for white-collar workers transitioning to new roles, and concentrate the astronomical profits of technology companies in the hands of those who own them.A floor is not enoughOne policy response commonly advocated to deal with technological disruption is Universal Basic Income or UBI – a regular cash payment to every citizen regardless of employment status. Silicon Valley executives have been among its most vocal champions.But UBI, whatever its merits as a safety net, does not address the problem of rising inequality. As Nobel laureate Michael Spence put it: “It just puts a floor under incomes – so you get most people sitting on the floor while a select few capture the astronomical wealth generated by capital.”A more promising response is Universal Basic Capital or UBC – giving everyone, not just the wealthy, a stake in the assets that are generating outsized returns.As James Manyika, a senior vice-president at Google, has argued: “It’s crucial that we have more people participating in the capital income pathway because, while labour income remains the most important for the majority of people, capital income is a bigger and bigger part of where the value is going.”The distinction matters. UBI redistributes income after the fact. UBC builds wealth from the ground up – harnessing the power of compounding so that those who currently have no financial assets begin to accumulate them early, and over time. Critics will note that the benefits of UBC accrue over decades rather than immediately, making it a poor remedy for current poverty.That is a fair point – but it argues for UBC complementing, rather than replacing, existing social support schemes, not for abandoning the idea.More on this topicTo win the AI adoption race, Singapore must mind the social class and gender gapsAI gender gap at work: Are women being left behind in Singapore’s AI push? Putting UBC into practiceThe only fully operational example of UBC today is Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend, which has paid annual cash distributions to every resident from oil revenues since 1982. But several other models are emerging.The US has proposed “Trump Accounts,” under which every child under eight would receive a US$1,000 (S$1,300) seed investment, with families able to contribute up to US$5,000 a year into an index fund. Withdrawals would be permitted from age 18 onwards, for education, a business or a home.Germany has come up with “early start pension accounts”, crediting children aged six to 17 with €10 (S$14.70) a month, which parents and later the beneficiaries themselves can top up and invest in diversified products such as exchange-traded funds; the funds can be withdrawn only at retirement, when decades of compounding would have made them substantial.OpenAI has proposed a Public Wealth Fund that would give every citizen a stake in AI-driven growth, potentially seeded with equity contributions from AI companies.Singapore’s opportunitySingapore is unusually well-positioned to act on this idea because the infrastructure for UBC already exists in embryonic form. The Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a sophisticated, trusted savings and investment architecture. With targeted adaptation, it could serve as the vehicle for a genuine UBC scheme.The existing CPF structure could remain intact. But new accounts within the system could be created and opened to all citizens from an early age – not only those in employment, as is currently the case.For citizens without savings, the Government could seed these accounts via interest-free loans, repayable later from the account’s own returns or from future earnings.The forthcoming life-cycle investment scheme to be introduced in 2028, which adjusts asset allocation as the account holder ages, provides a further ready-made mechanism that could be extended to UBC accounts.The goal is simple to state, even if the implementation requires care: Every Singaporean, from as early as possible in life, should have some exposure to financial assets that compound over time.This would not be a handout nor a floor, but a stake in the same wealth-generating mechanism that has been working so powerfully, and so unevenly, for those already at the top.The wealth disparity will not close by itself. In the age of AI, it is more likely to widen. A UBC can help narrow the gap.•Vikram Khanna is a former associate editor of The Straits Times who writes on economic affairs.More on this topicNow you see it, now you don’t: Why data can’t capture the AI revolutionSingapore’s AI push needs a defensive shield to protect workers

y not engaged at work is better

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part opinion on the topic of disengagement at work. Read the other here.“This is an alarm call, so wake up, wake up now” sang Bjork in 1997. One can imagine these lyrics echoing in Singapore boardrooms and business press offices every year when Gallup releases its global workplace report: Low engagement numbers prompt calls to fix organisational culture and re-engage the workforce.This year, 2026, is no exception. At just 14 per cent against a South-east Asian regional average of 25 per cent and a global average of 20 per cent, Singapore sits near the bottom of the global engagement table. The urge to cry wolf and treat this as a crisis is understandable. It is also a partial interpretation of the real situation and the data.Before reaching for the panic button, let us consider a different possibility – that Singapore’s low engagement levels may not just reflect apathy or dysfunction, but rather point to a recalibration of how Singaporeans relate to work in an always-on, digitally mediated economy. In other words, the lack of engagement may reflect a deliberate effort to redraw boundaries and preserve energy, and a more pragmatic stance towards work.Singapore has already seen signs of this boundary-setting instinct. In 2024, the Ministry of Education said teachers need not share their personal phone numbers or respond to work messages after school hours, except in emergencies. Likewise, tripartite guidelines that took effect in December 2024 require employers to formally consider employee requests for flexible adjustments to work hours, location or workload.The crisis narrative: Alarm call or crying wolf?If Singapore’s workforce was genuinely in trouble, one would expect to see distress rippling across all the indicators. But that is not what Gallup’s data shows. Loneliness, a marker of psychological disconnection, comes in at just 13 per cent, which is below regional and global averages.Most strikingly, 40 per cent of Singapore workers report to be thriving in life, ahead of South-east Asian (36 per cent) and global (34 per cent) averages. This is a peculiar profile for a disengaged workforce. Truly disengaged people usually would not report above-average life satisfaction. So, what is the data saying overall? There is, indeed, some cause for concern. At 43 per cent, Singapore’s daily stress rate is nearly double the regional average, although it is close to the global mean of 40 per cent. This is reflected in other indicators, such as that most Singaporeans are not getting enough sleep.But the overall picture suggests that workers may be protecting themselves by keeping more emotional distance from work, maintaining performance under pressure precisely because they are not staking their whole identity on their occupation.Indeed, what Gallup’s data actually describes is a workforce that has stopped treating its job as the primary source of meaning and identity, while remaining quite satisfied with life overall. This is work-life segregation as a coping strategy and a growing body of research suggests it may be a good one.Checking in and outMy collaborators and I have studied knowledge workers who were working from home. We discovered that those who used flexibility in their work hours achieved both higher well-being and productivity. Structuring the day so that work is not one uninterrupted 9-to-5 block, but one of many tasks woven into daily life, can help people to better cope with both professional and personal demands.For instance, parents of young children may wake earlier to work remotely, send the children to school, then resume work later in the morning and finish before the usual peak-hour rush. More importantly, the intermingling of work with other daily activities is not a sign of low commitment, but rather a practical way of managing competing demands that allows workers in the 21st century to remain functional across all their roles.In line with this, renowned organisational psychologist Sabine Sonnentag has spent decades studying what allows workers to sustain high performance over time. The answer she found is clear: Psychological detachment – the ability to mentally disengage from work when not working – is a strong predictor of sustained energy, well-being, and performance at work.A workforce that keeps its emotional investment in work calibrated, rather than maximised, may be doing exactly what the evidence suggests. In the era of expectations of constant connection and availability, the ability to mentally clock out is not a symptom of laziness or lack of interest, but a form of self-regulation. Even more, it is a competitive advantage that affords sustained performance.Out with the old, in with the (disengaged) newAnother important factor to consider when interpreting the data from the Gallup report is the ongoing generational shift in the workforce. Millennials and Gen Z have a different outlook on work than their parents and grandparents did. My research on generational differences in work values suggests that, although the priorities of millennials and Gen Z are not markedly different from those of their predecessors, the level of their expectations is higher across the board.And the higher the expectations, the easier for organisations to under-deliver, which surely does not help boost engagement. Younger workers are also less willing to tolerate rigid hours, such as being expected to stay in the office until a fixed time, especially after their work is done. Many would rather be judged by output than by presenteeism.Yet, this is not an alarm call, but rather a reflection of the ongoing value shift and change in what workers expect from employers and vice versa. The lack of engagement may simply reflect a more honest account of what work is and is not in 2026.Indeed, the younger workforce is generally more dynamic and mobile and less committed to the “one job for life” that their elders espoused, but, to be fair, this is as much the outcome of sociocultural trends as it is of an organisation-driven restructuring of employment relationships that has been ongoing for decades. Most importantly, these workers are still able to do their job well and live a good life overall.More on this topicDisengagement at work may endanger Singapore’s AI pushOnly 1 in 10 young Singapore workers is engaged at work: Gallup reportYou’ve got a European friend in meAnother important clarification is that Gallup’s engagement measure captures emotional investment in one’s job – namely the degree to which workers feel absorbed in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work. This is a high bar, which reflects deep psychological and emotional investment in work. Is this actually desirable?In a hyper-competitive, fast-paced environment like Singapore, emotional enthusiasm for one’s job can be an exhausting commodity to maintain. Moreover, what is not captured by Gallup’s measure are more relevant metrics, such as whether workers are doing their jobs well, living good lives or contributing meaningfully to the economy.Another caveat of the engagement metrics is that cultural differences play an important role. Americans tend to exhibit high engagement (31 per cent) because being emotionally involved in one’s job is seen as a necessary ingredient for professional success there. But this is not the case everywhere. Europe registers just 12 per cent engagement on Gallup’s scale – even lower than Singapore – but almost half of the workforce (49 per cent) is thriving.In a hyper-competitive, fast-paced environment like Singapore, emotional enthusiasm for one’s job can be an exhausting commodity to maintain.  PHOTO: UNSPLASHYet, no dominant narrative describes Europeans as a workforce in crisis just because the Swiss (8 per cent engaged) completely check out on the weekend or because the Dutch (14 per cent engaged) do not set meetings that start at 4pm or later. A concrete possibility is that disengagement has become a cultural characteristic in Singapore as much as in many European countries. The European example is a particularly illuminating one because it shows low engagement does not automatically mean poor outcomes.Reframing the questionSingapore’s employers and policymakers would do well to resist the impulse of treating a 14 per cent engagement figure as a number to be driven upwards at any cost. Low engagement should not automatically be read as a failure.Rather than asking how to raise engagement, the more useful question is whether workers feel that the current conditions are sustainable: Are they recovering well, living meaningful lives and performing well on the job? Can they keep doing so? If so, pushing for ever-higher engagement may not help, and could even undermine the balance that allows people to perform sustainably.A good takeaway is that employers should focus less on emotional buy-in as a target in itself, and more on whether workers are productive, healthy and able to sustain their work performance over time. On that note, the more appropriate Bjork quote would be, “There’s more to life than this”.•Federico Magni is an assistant professor at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University. An organisational behaviour expert, he researches creativity, team dynamics and human responses to AI at the workplace.More on this topicWhy mandatory office time isn’t going to workWith my own desk at work comes a sense of belonging