Study on Intergenerational Poverty

Synopsis:

The Singapore government has in the last decade rolled out various initiatives to increase social mobility of lower income families. These have included schemes to make home ownership possible through housing subsidies, focused attention on children in low income families through Kidstart, and wage supplements and training to increase the wages of those in low paying jobs.

For effective policy response, a deeper understanding of how families approach the many different policy initiatives is necessary. Moreover, it is also essential to cultivate an understanding of how families who experience intergenerational poverty navigate through their daily lives – education, work, family, social relations, the neighborhood – and manage their aspirations. It is also crucial to understand how some contemporary Singaporean families achieve social mobility, by studying those who have recently experienced upward mobility and moved to an improved housing situation.

Against this backdrop, this qualitative study examines intergenerational poverty in Singapore. It examines the experiences of living in poverty, the transfer of poverty not only materially but culturally, and how this affects social mobility and its aspirations. The study will examine households who are either currently or previously living in rental housing, and describe their lives through ethnographic observations in an attempt to gain insights from their experiences about the factors that may encourage poverty exit.