Singapore: Ethos Books, 2019. 312 pp. (B&W photos.) US$19.00, paper. ISBN 978-981-14-0595-2.
Teo You Yenn’s This is What Inequality Looks Like (TIWILL) is arguably the most pivotal book ever written on Singapore’s inequality. Quoted in parliament, selling 30,000 copies within three years, and sparking extended national debates over the next few years, TIWILL breathed new life and insight into discussions of inequality in Singapore.
Clearly written and thoughtfully constructed, TIWILL’s portrayal of poverty, perpetuated by inequality, effortlessly resonates beyond academic audiences without losing theoretical richness. Vivifying Singapore’s poor in the public imagination with heartfelt depictions of their daily lives, TIWILL elicits empathy while provoking awareness of how Singaporeans themselves might perpetuate the structures that trap the impoverished.
Leveraging ethnographic insights from visits to Singapore’s rental public housing neighborhoods from 2013 to 2016, Teo juxtaposes families’ everyday experiences against prevailing narratives of meritocracy and economic survival. These narratives obscure and justify the plight of these families, Teo argues, culminating in a policy system focused on self-reliance through employment and traditional family structures. The result is “differentiated deservingness,” an idea Teo introduces to depict how Singaporeans have “different types of access and degree of public support depending on who they are and how they live” (173). In other words, one’s income heavily influences access to quality public goods and services like healthcare or housing.
Arguing against a “script” of “normal” behavior that renders the choices of lower-income families as “bad” (36–37), TIWILL illustrates how material poverty significantly constrains the options of the impoverished; how it reduces their agency, and snowballs disadvantage for their children even as parents from these households struggle to provide them the same opportunities and life experiences as others. These dynamics also strip the poor of dignity by judging them against “normal” ways of living. When unable to meet these standards, outcomes are misattributed to their personal failings rather than structural conditions.
Overall, Teo’s arguments that systems shape individual outcomes and that bettering the situation for the poor must go beyond financial transfers to changing prevailing narratives and how Singaporeans think about privilege, poverty, and inequality are spot on, and pose a sobering challenge for Singaporean society. However, no single work can comprehensively address an issue like inequality and TIWILL’s methodological limitations leave open questions on the comprehensiveness and accuracy of some insights.
First, Teo argues upfront that TIWILL is an “ethnography of inequality rather than a catalog of poverty” because it situates “the lives and experiences of a group within the larger social context” (19). However, while the title promises an exposition on the state of inequality, the book focuses on a specific group of low-income families, for whom the analysis of unequal structures appears primarily taken to explain their experiences. Essentially, the ethnographic approach—where “data is generated through repeated visits to the same neighborhoods, through many informal conversations…through observations of interactions and space” (283)—fails to deliver an overview by omitting perspectives of groups beyond those interviewed.
By failing to narrate even in rough terms what these other groups experience, Teo overlooks their perspectives and contributions to the structures and narratives that stratify Singaporean society. Even limited to inequalities arising from socioeconomic status (Teo deals briefly with issues of ethnicity), TIWILL’s rendering of inequality omits even oft-mentioned groups like the so-called sandwiched class, said to benefit from neither economic growth like higher-income groups, nor the social policies that cater to lower-income groups.
Explicit comparisons are generally limited to Teo’s own experiences or the expectations of “middle-class respondents” on what was “normal” (107–108) drawn from interviews in 2002–2003. This exclusion of broader perspectives renders the book a tale of poverty, particularly that of rental housing residents in the eight neighborhoods Teo visited, and the structural forces that produced it. Not inequality as many other Singaporeans might understand or experience. This omission is critical since one reason inequality fails to be recognized and acted upon, as Teo rightly points out, is the way society collectively thinks about it.
Moreover, it is not always clear where this dominant narrative comes from. TIWILL variably refers to the state’s official statements, policy design, Teo’s interviews with the aforementioned middle class, and perceptions of the interviewed families. This is particularly problematic when these expectations of “normal” are painted as seemingly ubiquitous and uncontested. While TIWILL’s warm reception implies general resonance with its version of events, breaking down this larger narrative by its sources and their specific contributions helps identify areas of contention and change over time, and to nuance its insights.
For instance, in explaining why some reject depictions of poverty in Singapore, Teo posits indignation against any perceived disruption of “national narratives of economic development, growth, wealth, prosperity” (235). This national narrative is then partly attributed to institutions and personnel dealing with poverty, who frame it “primarily in individual terms, very much in accordance with the ethic of individualism and differentiated deservedness of a neoliberal capitalist state” (216).
Yet, an examination of official narratives reveals an articulation of desired reforms not unlike what Teo advocates for in TIWILL. For example, in 2013, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong unequivocally stated: “Today, the situation has changed. If we rely too heavily on the individual, their efforts alone will not be enough… And there are some things which individuals cannot do on their own and there are other things which we can do much better together. So, we must shift the balance” (Singapore Prime Minister’s Office, “National Day Rally Speech,” tinyurl.com/4mf26t5k). Whether this has successfully translated into policy is beside the point (my own work has argued that it has, but not enough; “Inequality and the Social Compact in Singapore,” Journal of Southeast Asian Economies, 36, no. 3 [2019]). But simply knowing the official narrative has shifted necessitates nuancing some of TIWILL’s analysis and conclusions.
That said, the limits of Teo’s approach in delivering the promised look at inequality in Singapore does not begin to threaten TIWILL’s prominent position as a cornerstone text for understanding the state of the poor and inequality in Singapore. A must-read for anyone interested in Singaporean society and the forces that reproduce it, TIWILL is a priceless foundation for developing a deeper appreciation of the struggles of those left behind in a country labelled as “crazy rich,” and how to help them.
Nathan Peng
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Singapore Management University, Singapore