Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Economic Status And Old-Age Health In Poverty-Stricken Myanmar, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan, John Knodel

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Objective: We examine the association between poverty, economic inequality, and health among elderly in Myanmar. Method: We analyze 2012 data from Myanmar’s first representative survey of older adults to investigate how health indicators vary across wealth quintiles as measured by household possessions and housing quality. Results: Poverty and poor health are pervasive. Self-assessed health, sensory impairment, and functional limitation consistently improve with higher wealth levels regardless of socio-demographic controls. Differentials in self-rated health and sensory impairment between the bottom and second quintiles are clearly evident, suggesting that relative economic inequality matters even among very poor elders and that a small …

On The Social And Political Effects Of Opening In Rural China, Housi Cheng, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What are the economic, social and political effects when previously isolated villages are opened to the outside world? Scholars from different traditions expect different sorts of positive or negative affects to occur. Rural China presents an ideal environment to study this question empirically. Villages within rural China are in the process of being opened to the outside world in different forms, such as through being connected by road, the investment of agribusiness, or urbanization. Moreover this opening is being driven and shaped by different actors, including local residents, government and businesses. The different ways and actors that this opening occurs …

The Situation Of Thailand’S Older Population: An Update Based On The 2014 Survey Of Older Persons In Thailand, John Knodel, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan, Vipan Prachuabmoh, Wiraporn Pothisiri

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Population ageing and the well-being of older persons are major emerging challenges for families, communities and government in Thailand as in much of Asia. The Thai government has been giving very serious attention to ageing issues. This was clearly indicated by the adoption of the Second National Plan for Older Persons covering 2002-2021, the prominence of ageing issues in the 2012-16 National Economic and Social Development Plan, and a 2015 establishment of the Department of Older Persons with expanded authority to carry out programs to support elderly Thais. Furthermore, the Old Age Allowance program was expanded in 2009 into a …

7 “Pc” Ways To Make People-Centric Policies, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

If asked to describe 2015 forSingapore, I would summarise it as“a people-centric year”.

The Possibility Of Global Public Sociology, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, I revisit the debate on public sociologywithin the wider institutional context of higher education.Once ramifications of globalisation of highereducation are taken into account, institutional constraintsplaced on public sociology turn out to bemuch larger than previously thought: a) the institutionalisationof world university rankings reinforcesthe dominance of professional sociology over publicsociology and; b) the commercialisation and vocationalisationof higher education worldwide underminesthe discipline of sociology as a whole. At the sametime, however, globalisation of higher education facilitatesthe formation of transnational networks ofsociologists examining transnational social problems,ranging from marketisation to climate change. Theseemerging transnational networks are likely to serve asinfrastructures for …

Protean Career Strategies, Horacio Falcao

Asian Management Insights

The barbell approach treats careers like an investment portfolio; a little diversification does you good.

Vital Yet Vulnerable: Mental And Emotional Health Of South Asian Migrant Workers In Singapore, Nicholas Harrigan, Chiu Yee Koh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Numbering nearly one million persons, low-waged, low-skilled migrant workers are a vital yet vulnerable part of Singapore’s economy and society. This study, undertaken several months before the Little India riots of December 2013, measures the psychological distress of 261 South Asian Work Permit holders, and 344 South Asian injury and salary claim workers. While most regular Work Permit holders are relatively happy and healthy, our study finds that 62 per cent of injury and salary claim workers meet the screening conditions for a Serious Mental Illness. We find that the three main drivers of psychological distress are (1) the housing …

Do We Owe Each Other Our Emotional Labor?, Aliya Hamid Rao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In academia our intellectual pursuits are also inherently emotional. It is thus unsurprising that in a recent blog post (here) another graduate student makes a case for acknowledging that academic work is infused with emotional labor, and for creating a space for “crying in academia.” She urges us to move away from scripts of professionalism so that we can stop pretending that emotional labor is not intrinsic to almost all that we do as aspiring academics.

Intersubjective Norms: Cultural And Interpersonal Perspective, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Normative perspectives in cultural psychology provide a fresh view to understand the processes of cultural influence on human behavior. Although much of the existing research focuses on individuals’ internalized personal values and beliefs to explain cultural tendencies, the new perspective proposes perceived intersubjective norms as an alternative key component in cultural influence (Chiu, Gelfand, Yamagishi, Shteynberg, & Wan, 2010; Zou et al., 2009). Extending this newly emerging approach, the lead articles in this special issue address some of the important questions and issues of normative perspectives in cultural psychology. The articles provide useful explanations for why individuals vary in the …

Living Arrangements And Psychological Well-Being Of The Elderly After The Economic Transition In Vietnam, Ken Yamada, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Objectives: We examine the relationship between living arrangements and psychological well-being of the older adults in Vietnam, where there is an influence of Confucian values and a lack of close substitutes for family care of the older adults, by exploiting a great deal of regional variation in economic development. We also examine the role of living arrangements in well-being differentials across regions. Method: We estimate a triangular simultaneous-equation discrete-response model, which accounts for the simultaneity between living arrangements and psychological well-being (happiness, depression, loneliness, poor appetite, and sleep disorder), using a nationally representative sample of 2,225 adults aged 60 and …

Enriching The Perceived Norms Perspective Of Intergenerational Cultural Transmission: The Roles Of Norm Reference Groups And Norm Adherence/Deviance Motive, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this article, I seek to apply Morris and Liu (2015)’s functionalist account of subjective norms to enrich Tam’s (2015) perceived norms perspective of intergenerational cultural transmission. This enriched approach recognizes parents’ choice to construct their transmission preferences that include norms of a nonmainstream reference group and that support a norm deviance motive. In this light, I review empirical evidence examining some factors that affect whether parents reference on peer or elite groups or they tend toward norm adherence or deviance in the transmission process. Acknowledging these variants allows the bridge of value transmission and value change studies that are …

A Conclusion, Yet An Opening To Enriching The Normative Approach Of Culture, Chi-Yue Chiu, M. J. Gelfand, J. R. Harrington, Angela K. Y. Leung, Zhi Liu, M. W. Morris, Yan Mu, G. Shteynberg, Kim-Pong Tam, Ching Wan, Xi Zou

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We compile in this article the target article authors’ thoughtful responses to the commentaries. Their responses identify some common threads across the rich contents of the commentary pieces, interlink the observation and theoretical propositions in the commentaries with broader streams of research, present new perspectives inspired by the commentary contributors, and pose provocative questions to further ignite research efforts on the normative analysis of culture.

Working Together, Celebrating Uniqueness, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Gender and professionalism make up a person’s uniqueness. How can managers get everyone on accomplishing the same goal despite their different approaches to the task at hand?

Shineseniors: Personalized Services For Active Ageing-In-Place, Liming Bai, Alex I. Gavino, Wei Qi Lee, Jungyoon Kim, Na Liu, Hwee-Pink Tan, Hwee Xian Tan, Lee Buay Tan, Xiaoping Toh, Alvin Cerdena Valera, Elina Jia Yu, Alfred Wu, Mark S. Fox

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Singapore faces a major challenge in providing care and support for senior citizens due to its rapidlyageing population and declining old-age support ratio. The concept of Ageing-in-Place was introduced by the Singapore government [1] to allow older people to live independently in their own homes and communities so that the need for institutionalised care will only be utilised when necessary. We have three fundamental questions that this project will answer: 1. How to make community care serviceseffective through innovations in care delivery? How to lower the cost of service delivery and improve 2. productivity of caregivers, by leveraging information and …

Being Chinese Again: Learning Mandarin In Post-Suharto Indonesia, Charlotte Setijadi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

For thirty-two years under former President Suharto’s New Order regime (from 1966-1998), the teaching of Chinese languages in schools was banned in Indonesia. During this period of total assimilation, public displays of Chinese characters were prohibited along with other forms of Chinese cultural expressions, allegedly for the sake of national unity. From 1966-69, hundreds of Chinese medium schools and Chinese language press were closed in Chinese settlements throughout the archipelago and the formal teaching of Chinese languages in Indonesia effectively ceased. As a result, the majority of contemporary Chinese Indonesians no longer have the ability to speak, let alone write …

Gender Research In Amj: An Overview Of Five Decades Of Empirical Research And Calls To Action, Aparna Joshi, Brett Neely, Cynthia Emrich, Dorothy Griffiths, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Fifteen years into the 21st century, gender equality appears to be at the forefront of the global humanitarian agenda. As a co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai became a symbol for the rights of women and girls to obtain an education. In the same year, the United Nations launched the “HeForShe” campaign, which views men and boys as advocates and stakeholders in the campaign for gender equality around the world. Globally, equitable access to education and employment has been recognized as not only a “women’s issue” but as a human rights issue (UN Women, 2014).

Lucky To Be Singaporean, Ee-Ing Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Op-ed about being Singaporean, in our historic 2015 elections.

"In the midst of our historic elections, I would like to remind Singaporeans that there remains a wider world out there. That our concerns about CPF money, high housing prices, rising income inequality, foreign workers, transportation woes, and the AHPETC saga, while important, are nonetheless First World problems. We have the luxury of arguing about them because we don’t have to worry about the fundamental problems of survival. Literally.

Thus, as we consider what we would like our country to look like in the coming years, I suggest that we first …

Being Environmentally Responsible: Cosmopolitan Orientation Predicts Pro-Environmental Behaviors, Angela K. Y. Leung, Kelly Koh, Kim-Pong Tam

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Much research has examined individuals' values and beliefs as antecedents or correlates of pro-environmental behaviors (PEB). We approach this question from the novel perspective of individuals' cosmopolitan orientation (CO). We define CO as made up of three essential qualities. First, cultural openness captures individuals' receptiveness to immerse in and learn from other cultures. Second, global prosociality denotes a sense of collective moral obligation to universally respect and promote basic human rights. Third, respect for cultural diversity concerns high tolerance of and appreciation for cultural differences. Across two studies, we validated the Cosmopolitan Orientation Scale (COS) with theoretically related criterion measures …

Do Parents Favor Their Adoptive Or Biological Children? Predictions From Kin Selection And Compensatory Models, Nancy L. Segal, Norman P. Li, Jamie L. Graham, Steven A. Miller

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Evolutionary reasoning (Kin Selection Theory) predicts less favorable behaviors directed by parents toward their unrelated children, relative to their biologically related children. By extension, it may be argued that parents should also have less favorable perceptions of the intellectual, personality and other behavioral traits of unrelated children, compared with biologically related children. However, recent work has modified this expectation, given the distinction between unrelated adopted children (who are acquired intentionally) and unrelated stepchildren (who are acquired via mating effort). The compensatory model takes into account evolved desires for parenting and the evolutionarily novel availability of unrelated children. It predicts that …

Rural Households' Social Reproduction In China's Agrarian Transition: Wage Employment And Family Farming, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Wage employment has penetrated deeply into rural households’ livelihoods and has become acentral pillar in China’s rural economy. In the past three decades, three developmentspropelled the growth of wage employment: rural industrialization, rural-to-urban migration,and rise of capitalist agriculture. These developments brought in a decisive break to thetrajectory of China’s agrarian transition: the traditional model of household reproductionbased on family farming and handicraft production has now been replaced by a new one inwhich wage employment and family farming are closely bonded in a myriad of ways –through both the household-level division of labour and individual-level circulation of labourbetween the two.

Five Phases Of Brokered International Marriages In South Korea: A Complexity Perspective, Jiyoung Song

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The paper examines the evolution in international commercial marriage migration from Southeast Asia to South Korea from a Complexity Theory (CT) framework, originally from natural sciences but vastly entering the field of social sciences. CT stresses the non-linear nature of complex systems that are composed of a large number of individual components operating within a conditioned boundary whose interactions lead emergent properties in an unpredictable way. The study is based on the author’s fieldwork interviews and participatory observations of marriage migrants, government officers, and social workers in South Korea in 2010-2013, which establishes five phases of brokered marriages, namely, (1) …

Weathering The Empire: Meteorological Research In The Early Nineteenth-Century Straits Settlements, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores meteorological interest and experimentation in the early history of the Straits Settlements. It centres on the establishment of an observatory in 1840s Singapore and examines the channels that linked the observatory to a global community of scientists, colonial officers and a reading public. It will argue that, although the value of overseas meteorological investigation was recognized by the British government, investment was piecemeal and progress in the field often relied on the commitment and enthusiasm of individuals. In the Straits Settlements, as elsewhere, these individuals were drawn from military or medical backgrounds, rather than trained as dedicated …

A Tale Of Two Bosses: Why Strong Female Leaders Are Seen As Inauthentic, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

New analysis of media portrayal reveals the gender bias in leadership perceptions

State Political Identity And Meta-Governance: Comparative Analysis Of Governance Modes In Vegetable Retail In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A government's political identity is a key factor in meta-governance; it powerfully shapes a government's policy aims and implementation preferences at the most abstract level and forms a stable governance mode. Dissonance between a pre-existing governance mode and the government's evolved political identity will lead to governance failures and pose political challenges to the government. In the case of vegetable retail in Shanghai, the neoliberal developmental state transformed the hierarchical governance into market governance; but as it evolves into a corporatist welfare state, market imperfections come to be perceived as governance failures, and the government responds by reintroducing hierarchical measures.

Bringing Agriculture Back In: The Central Place Of Agrarian Change In Rural China Studies, Qian Forrest Zhang, Carlos Oya, Jingzhong Ye

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since the mid-2000s, rural development and politics in China has entered a new phase that revolves around what the central government calls ‘agricultural modernization’. Transforming the once-dominant smallholding, family-based agriculture has become a focal point of the government's programme of rural rejuvenation, where a range of economic changes unleashed by urbanization and industrialization also converge. We argue that in this new context, agrarian change has become the key vantage point from which to study rural China. We review key contributions of the papers in this special issue and highlight their insights on rural differentiation, land politics and rural livelihoods. We …

How Do Living Arrangements And Intergenerational Support Matter For Psychological Health Of Elderly Parents? Evidence From Myanmar, Vietnam, And Thailand, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan, Wiraporn Pothisiri, Giang Thanh Long

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Living arrangements and family support for older persons have become an increasingly important policy concern in developing and rapidly aging Asia. Formulating a sound elderly care policy for the region will benefit from empirically examining how living arrangements, particularly coresidence, and intergenerational exchanges of financial, instrumental, and emotional support are associated with old-age psychological health. This study analyzes data from nationally representative aging surveys in Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand for 2011-2012 to offer a comparative perspective from Southeast Asia where various kinship systems coexist. Results suggest that coresidence with a child of culturally preferred gender significantly improves the emotional health …

Class Differentiation In Rural China: Dynamics Of Accumulation, Commodification And State Intervention, Forrest Qian Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper develops a classification of the emerging agrarian class positions in China today. Using an instrument based on rural households' combination of market positions in four markets – land, labour, means of production and product – I identify five agrarian classes: the capitalist employer class, the petty‐bourgeois class of commercial farmers, two labouring classes of dual‐employment households and wage workers, and subsistence peasants. This classification is then used as a heuristic device to organize the empirical analysis that examines how dynamics of agrarian change drive class differentiation in rural China. For the capitalist employer class, the analysis focuses on …

Shaving India, Making Profits, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Gillette was having trouble making inroads into the Indian grooming market for men...until they roped in the women

Caregiving In Singapore, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Close familial relationships are crucial in caring for the elderly, disabled and disadvantaged but professionalising the caregiving industry is perhaps even more important

What Does Living Alone Really Mean For Older Persons? A Comparative Study Of Myanmar, Vietnam, And Thailand, Bussarawan Puk Teerawichitchainan, John Knodel, Wiraporn Pothisiri

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Background: Rapid development and social change in Asia have led many to assume that the proportion of elderly people living alone is rising and that they tend to live in destitute situations. These assumptions often lack empirical validation. Objective: We address the trends and correlates of solitary living among older persons in Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand. We examine the extent to which this form of living arrangement equates with their financial stress, physical and social isolation, psychological distress, and met need for personal care. Methods: We analyze 2011-12 national surveys of older persons from the three countries. We employ descriptive …