Mind... the (income) gap

[camelking]

From an MOE reply to a forum letter in 2009:

"Our GEP pupils do not only come from rich homes or selected schools but from all socio-economic groups and the wide spectrum of society. They are drawn from about 115 of our 177 primary schools (i.e. 65%) and more than half (55%) live in HDB flats."

We can each draw our own conclusions.

Adding some more numbers for comparison. Based on Singstat, 82% of the housing is HDB, and 17% is Private. Thus, the former (82%) contributes 55% of the students, while the latter (17%) contributes 45% of the students. How that sounds?

Social mobility is highest when the country is developing and provides fair opportunities for all. The smart kids of hawkers, sweepers, shopkeepers, labourers etc in the 50s to 70s had already moved up in the social ladder and now, these smart kids in the past are having their children.

With smarter people occupying the upper strata of the society, it is likely that their offspring are as smart, probability wise.(but may not be as hardworking..).

So, in general, the social mobility will drop when a fair society has developed. It is kind of strange if the last generation of smarter kid, being successful themselves, have kids that performed on par or even lower than the kids from the lower strata of the society statistically.

But, why was it that the lower strata of the society in the past were able to move up so rapidly despite their parents were doing jobs that did not require much knowledge?

The answer is simply that many of those hawkers, sweepers, labourers etc in the past were not given a chance to learn and develop their specialities. They might be very smart but in that era, there were no opportunities for them to excel. However, their offsprings may carry their traits and with fair opportunity, they will outperform their parents.

My mum came from a poor family, completed primary school and was a hawker. But I think she is very intelligent. If she had given a chance to go to school till university, I think she will do very well.

Yes, social mobility seemed to have slow down as a country "matures". To me, a permanent elite or/and high class has formed and it is getting harder and harder to get in.
I work for a very rich man and get the chance to witness doors are opened for him and MORE IMPORTANTLY, his rather nice but average children.

Of course, what i witnessed could be an isolated case...unless statistics proved me otherwise......