Featured student research: Felix Teo’s Analysing Poverty in Singapore
Lyle Fearnley
Our HASS Freshmore core course, ‘02.003 Social Science: Understanding Behaviour, Culture and Society’, begins with the foundational debates of political economy. We read selections from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, including his famous discussion of the origin of the division of labour and its role in promoting national wealth. One of the critical points students love to discuss is Smith’s idea of “universal affluence.” Smith argues that the division of labour increases the “great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts” and therefore gives rise to “that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people.” As he explains, the increase of productivity provides “every workman” with more surplus goods to exchange; as division of labour increases alongside the expansion of trade, a “general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society.”
As critics from Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim to Thomas Piketty have pointed out, Smith’s model misses the importance of economic and social inequality. Although Smith may be correct that even a “day-labourer” in a rich country possesses more goods than the king of a poor country, he underestimated the social impact of inequality within a society. It is on this point that Felix Teo, a student from our 2023 September term of Freshmore Social Science, trains his attention in the independent report Analysing Poverty in Singapore that we are publishing here. Felix researched and wrote this report independently, demonstrating inspiration, dedication and passion. As a good engineer, his analysis rests on extensive review and engagement with publicly available quantitative data.
In Singapore, there are few visible signs of poverty, and Felix confirms that absolute poverty – defined by a benchmark minimum income – is extremely low in the country. However, he urges us to look at the available data from another perspective. First, he explores the topic of relative poverty—defined as a people whose income is a significant percentage below median income—and finds that those living in relative poverty comprise a larger population. In other words, although nearly everyone has enough to live on, he argues that some may not have enough to live an “average” life—potentially leading to problems such as social dislocation. Second, he proposes that we expand our definition of poverty beyond a financial measurement to consider broader conditions like access to quality housing or healthcare. After reviewing these topics, Felix develops two new indexes – the Physical Dimensions of Poverty Index (PDPI) and the Social Dimensions of Poverty Index (SDPI)—as tools to assess levels of poverty defined in this more holistic manner. Felix argues that these tools can better identify who is suffering from poverty, and what they are lacking, to better target interventions.
As with any academic study, we present Felix’s report publicly to facilitate discussion and review of the findings. We look forward to a productive conversation about the analysis and measurement of wealth and poverty!