Ms Sylvia Lim's speech in parliament about happiness in Singapore:
May I first thank the President for his Address and the government for making the promises contained in the Address.
The Workers’ Party welcomes and supports the statement that Singapore’s success is defined not just by material progress but by our values and ideals. The Workers’ Party is ready to work with the government towards a better life for all.
However, it is important to point out that over the last few years many Singaporeans have faced harsh realities that do not match the sentiments contained in the Address.
A country’s headline figures, such as GDP growth, mask the realities of life for certain groups. Thus, to have segmented updates, such as the recent joint report by the Ministry of Manpower and Department of Statistics (released Oct 11), is helpful. One disturbing fact from that report is that after accounting for inflation, wages of Singaporeans at the 20th percentile of income have stagnated over the last decade. In other words, the real incomes of the bottom 20% of working Singaporeans have not increased in 10 years.
On the ground, we see that there are Singaporeans who feel unfairly treated vis-à-vis the foreign workforce. Divorces leave many families homeless. The demand for rental flats has risen. Seniors worry about healthcare costs. There are chronically ill patients who have even sold their homes to pay medical bills. As Dr Lam Pin Min said earlier, there are Singaporeans believe that they are better off dead than sick.
These issues, and the fact that they have been around for years, may lead some Singaporeans to question whether the vision in the President’s Address, will be translated to reality.
The Address is titled: A Home We Share, A Future We Build Together. With a vast divide between the haves and have-nots, how do we nurture such a shared home and future together?
At the Opening of the 12th Parliament, I believe that the government is seriously pondering over how to alleviate the ill-effects of certain policies. But moving forward, how should the government assess whether it is going in the correct direction and making a positive impact on people’s lives?
The Bhutan royal wedding hogged headlines over the weekend. As many of us know, the kingdom of Bhutan has an unusual way of measuring the country’s development. It is called GNH or Gross National Happiness. This indicator is garnering international attention, even among developed countries.
In July this year, Bhutan initiated a resolution at the UN General Assembly titled “Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development”. There were a total of 66 co-sponsors of the resolution and the General Assembly adopted it without a vote.
The resolution’s preamble states that “the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal”, and that “the gross domestic product indicator by nature was not designed to and does not adequately reflect the happiness and well-being of people in a country.”
Member states have been invited “to pursue the elaboration of additional measures that better capture the importance of the pursuit of happiness and well-being in development with a view to guiding their public policies.”
With such international interest, is it now time for Singapore’s government to conspicuously focus on happiness as a national goal? Should policies be articulated to show how they will ultimately achieve happiness for Singaporeans as a whole?
This may sound too warm and fuzzy for some, but in fact our government supported the resolution at the United Nations. Indeed, Singapore was one of the 66 countries that co-sponsored the draft resolution.
Since Singapore was a co-sponsor, may I ask the government to elaborate on what will be the practical effect of the resolution on Singapore? What indicators does it it intend to put in place to measure whether Singaporeans as a whole are achieving happiness and well-being? Might the government also tell us how its policies over the next 5 years will be guided by such indicators?
In fact, the concept of happiness at the national level is not new. The American Declaration of Independence states that among the unalienable rights of men are “…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
Back home, our children pledge every day to achieve “happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation”.
Since independence, Singapore has focused on achieving prosperity and progress. Has happiness been forgotten, despite the words in our pledge? Or maybe it has been assumed that once there is prosperity and progress, happiness would automatically follow.
But has it? Does prosperity and progress come sometimes at the expense of happiness? Prosperity and progress are certainly important, but they cannot be ends in themselves. Surely they should be the means to an end – the happiness of Singaporeans as a whole.
What difference can this make? Let me give an example of an issue that might need to be dealt with very differently by the government if it pursues happiness, rather than maximum GDP growth, as the overarching goal: Singapore’s low fertility rate.
Singapore’s total fertility rate (TFR) should concern us greatly if we are worried about preserving our culture and identity for future generations. I note that surprisingly little emphasis was placed on this in the PMO’s Addenda.
In recent years, home prices have risen sharply. For couples who want children, one of the factors they consider in deciding when to have children and how many to have, is the affordability of housing.
A young couple who wants children but who is stretched by high housing payments over a long repayment period may delay having them, and may even have fewer children than they would ideally like to have.
In Hong Kong, a study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong suggests that housing price inflation could account for up to 65% of their decrease in fertility over the past forty years. (J Yi and J Zhang (2009). The Effect of House Price on Fertility: Evidence from Hongkong. Economic Inquiry, Volume 48, Issue 3.)
In Singapore, analyses by local economists show a similar link. Assoc Prof Tilak Abeysinghe, Deputy Director of the Singapore Centre for Applied and Policy Economics, NUS, has been studying the issue of housing affordability for some time. He notes in an article in the Straits Times on September 1st this year, that in Singapore, the data showed that between 1977 to 2010, there were generally “fewer children when house prices head(ed) north”.
He notes that the total fertility rate of Singapore has a close link with how affordable housing had been two years earlier. When housing was more affordable, the fertility rate in Singapore actually rose two years later. He concludes the article by saying: “Although the fertility rate is stubbornly less responsive to many factors, it is possible that sustaining housing affordability may help at least in arresting the decline in the fertility rate.”
Improving the TFR is a critical issue if Singaporeans are to remain the core of our society.
If economic growth is overwhelmingly the government’s goal, then achieving higher housing prices at the expense of fertility may not be considered a problem.
But if the happiness and the sustainability of Singapore society is the overarching goal, then there is a need to unravel the exact relationship between high property prices and fertility, and what responses might arrest or even reverse the decline in fertility rates. We will have to look beyond immediate procreation incentives to the bigger picture.
My point is: Since the government has co-sponsored the resolution to stress the importance of happiness and well-being in guiding policies, what tangible changes can we expect in the government’s general approach? Will government policies from now on be framed to focus on whether they lead to happiness and contentment for Singaporeans as a whole? Will we be coming up with our own national index of happiness and well-being?
Our founding elected leaders believe that happiness is important to be included in our national pledge. Let us continue to put these beliefs to action. We have been achieving progress and prosperity; let’s give happiness the rightful place in our pledge for this Parliament – “so as to achieve HAPPINESS, prosperity and progress for our nation”.
