Sociology Commons^™

Why Have Candidates In Indonesian Elections Increasingly Been Rallying Ethnic And Religious Support?, Colm A. Fox

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Ethnicity and religion often become politicised in elections. Research has found that this is particularly true during a transition to democracy. During these times, fragile democratic rules and practices, coupled with strong ethnic bonds, often motivate aspiring politicians to bolster their support by appealing to voters’ emotional allegiances to their tribe, ethnicity, or religion. But, Indonesia’s case is puzzling.

Gender And Parliamentary Representation In India: The Case Of Violence Against Women And Children, Sadhvi Kalra, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

To better understand how gender impacts parliamentary representation, we analysed representative claims made by parliamentarians in India, the world's largest democracy. Applying critical frame analysis to plenary debates in the Indian Rajya Sabha, we examined four parliamentary bills addressing violence against women and children under four successive governments between 1999 and 2019. Testing six hypotheses concerning who represents and how, our study found women legislators more active in speaking on behalf of women and children than male legislators. Women parliamentarians focused more on rehabilitating victims and expanding the scope of rights and rights-holders. Women were also more vocal in contesting …

Corona Crisis And Inequality: Why Management Research Needs A Societal Turn, Hari Bapuji, Charmi Patel, Gokhan Ertug, David G. Allen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

As the world struggles to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, the stark inequalities in our societies have been laid bare, and the interplay between organizations and societies has also become evident yet again. This crisis underscores the need for management scholars to take a societal turn and examine how organizational practices interact with societal economic inequality. To illustrate this approach, we discuss organizational practices – corporate social responsibility, work design, recruitment and selection, and compensation management – that can contribute to the normalization, reinforcement, and reduction of economic inequalities in society. We conclude by calling on scholars of inequality, as …

Giving And Receiving: A Study Of Barriers And Enablers In Asian Philanthropy, Dalvin Sidhu, Jinwen Chen

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

This report provides an insight into Asian philanthropy through engaging with philanthropic entities (PEs) in Greater China, India and Indonesia. Issues pertinent to this research include (1) challenges and opportunities for philanthropy in the region, (2) the interest and readiness of PEs to address common regional problems, (3) identifying support and platforms that would effectively help translate giving strategies into impact, (4) the interest and readiness of PEs to explore and engage in innovative ways, and (5) identifying the major areas in which these PEs are involved.

The Hunger Report: An In-Depth Look At Food Insecurity In Singapore, Tania Nagpaul, Dalvin Sidhu, Jinwen Chen

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

This report provides a detailed account of the first nationally representative study on the largely hidden problem of food insecurity in Singapore.

Changes In Prenatal Testosterone And Sexual Desire In Expectant Couples, Wei Xiang Sim, William J. Chopik, Britney M. Wardecker, Robin S. Edelstein

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

During the transition to parenthood (TTP), both women and men report declines in sexual desire, which are thought to reflect an evolutionarily adaptive focus on parenting over mating. New parents also show changes in testosterone, a steroid hormone implicated in both parenting and mating, suggesting that changes in sexual desire may be associated with changes in testosterone. To test these associations, we followed a sample of heterosexual couples expecting their first child across the prenatal period. We examined prenatal changes in testosterone and two forms of sexual desire (solitary, dyadic). Expectant mothers showed prenatal increases in testosterone, and women's higher …

Foster Positivity Amid Covid-19 Challenges, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Many behaviours have encouraged positivity during the pandemic. More can be done to create communities that nurture positive attitudes and experiences

Temporality And Acquiescent Immobility Among Aspiring Nurse Migrants In The Philippines, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Romeo Luis A. Macabasag

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

While there is a considerable literature on how people decide to move from their places of origin, few studies have examined how aspiring migrants cope with immobility and eventually decide to let go of their migration aspirations. This paper uses the lens of migration temporalities to show how Filipino nurses unable to emigrate overseas eventually chose to remain in the Philippines. In particular, we discuss how nurses formulated these decisions as they experienced different forms of temporality: from an optimistic period of 'becoming a migrant' in nursing school to the precarious temporality of building work experience in a context of …

Executive Function And Subjective Well-Being In Middle And Late Adulthood, Wei Xing Toh, Hwajin Yang, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Objectives: A growing body of research has investigated psychosocial predictors of subjective well-being (SWB), a key component of healthy ageing, which comprises life satisfaction and affective well-being. However, few studies have examined how executive function (EF)-a collection of adaptive, goal-directed control processes-could affect SWB in middle and late adulthood. Methods: By analyzing a nationally representative adult cohort ranging from early 30s to early 80s from the Midlife Development in the United States 2 study, we examined two potential mediators (i.e., sense of control versus positive reappraisal) that could underlie the relation between EF and SWB. Further, we assessed how these …

Job Duration And Match Characteristics Over The Business Cycle, Ismail Baydur, Toshihiko Mukoyama

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the cyclical behavior of job separation and the characteristics of matches between workers and jobs. We estimate a proportional hazard model with competing risks, distinguishing between different types of separations. A higher unemployment rate at the start of an employment relationship increases the probability of job-to-job transitions, whereas its effect on employment-to-unemployment transitions is negative. We then build a simple job ladder model to interpret our empirical results. A model with two-dimensional heterogeneity in match (job) characteristics has the same qualitative features as the data. Once the model is extended to include cyclicality in the offered match …

Attitudes, Behaviours, And The Well-Being Of Older Singaporeans In The Time Of Covid-19: Perspectives From The Singapore Life Panel, Paulin T. Straughan, William Tov, Seonghoon Kim, Terence Cheng, Stephen Hoskins, Micah Tan

ROSA Research Briefs

COVID-19 has affected all Singaporeans, regardless of age and socioeconomic status (SES). Many measures have been implemented by the government to control the spread of this disease, including restrictions on social gatherings, restrictions on overseas travel, and making it compulsory to wear a mask. Measures have also included a partial lockdown – known as the ‘circuit breaker’ – which began in April 2020. This forced Singaporeans to quickly adapt to a new normal with some doing better than others. This research brief provides an overview of how COVID-19 and its related measures have affected seniors in Singapore using data from …

Covid-19 And Procrastination: The Struggle To Stay Motivated In A Pandemic, Singapore Management University

Social Space

COVID-19 has led to the cancellation of countless internships, travel plans, summer jobs, music concerts and festivals, graduations, conferences, you name it. Fixed deadlines have become fluid, and both short-term and long-term goals are presently at the mercy of something far beyond our control. In the face of a global pandemic, we may find ourselves wondering, “Why bother planning for anything anyway?" Yet this very mindset is the crux of the coronavirus procrastination problem, says CHARDONNAY NEEDLER.

Humanity, Above All: Facing Covid-19 With Altruism, Compassion And Empathy, Michael Jenkins

Social Space

In Singapore, we have seen many examples of altruism, compassion and empathy taking place during this challenging COVID-19 period. These ACE attributes, as I call them, are instances of humanity in action.

Do Coaches In The National Basketball Association Actually Display Racial Bias? Replication And Extension, Gokhan Ertug, Massimo Maoret

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We replicate and extend empirical evidence that has been interpreted as an indication of coaches’ racial bias in the National Basketball Association (NBA) by Schroffel and Magee (2012) and Zhang (2017; 2019). After replicating the published results, we extend them by modeling coaches’ decisions of “resting the starters,” a common tactical decision based on players’ quality and not on their race, thus exploring whether this tactic may provide an alternative explanation for associations that might thus far have been taken to indicate racial bias. Our results show that, after empirically accounting for “resting the starters,” the magnitude of associations that …

Place-Making/Management: The Policy And Practice Of Arts-Centred Spatial Interventions In Singapore, Su Fern Hoe

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Singapore has won numerous accolades and garnered global attention for its physical infrastructure and iconic architecture. Despite these achievements, its government has recognized that certain parts of the city still lack a certain human vitality and buzz. Additionally, like other post-industrial cities, the production of a positive urban experience has been identified as that critical competitive advantage that would differentiate Singapore from other cities. Consequently, the Singapore government adopted a strategy called ‘place management’ in 2008 to inject ‘heart and soul’ into the city, and deliver a liveable, globally competitive and amenity-rich urban environment for its increasingly educated and upper …

Competing For Academic Labor: Research And Recruitment Outside The Academic Center, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Meng-Hsuan Chou, Jue Wang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Increasing competition among research universities has spurred a race to recruit academic labor to staff research teams, graduate programs, and laboratories. Yet, often ignored is how such efforts entail negotiating a pervasive hierarchy of universities, where elite institutions in the West continue to attract the best students and researchers across the world. Based on qualitative interviews with 59 Singapore-based faculty, this paper demonstrates how migrant academics in competitive universities outside the West take on the burden of seeking other ways of attracting academic labor into their institutions, often resorting to ethnic and transnational ties to circumvent limits imposed by a …

Gender And Beauty In The Financial Analyst Profession: Evidence From The United States And China, Congcong Li, An-Ping Lin, Hai Lu, Kevin Veenstra

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine how gender and beauty affect the likelihood of being voted as an All-Star in the financial analyst profession in both the United States and China. We find that female analysts are more likely to be voted as All-Star analysts in the United States, but good-looking female U.S. analysts are less likely to be voted as All-Stars. The conclusion is the opposite for Chinese analysts. We find that female analysts in China are less likely to be voted as All-Stars, but the likelihood increases with their facial attractiveness. These findings implicate a beauty penalty for female analysts in the …

The Science Of Stifling Heat: Recognising Urban Climate Change In The Straits Settlements, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Heat is a ubiquitous part of tropical living. During the nineteenth century consumers and writers of travel literature, explorers and colonists became increasingly familiar with the endless, languid summers of tropical climates where continued, unrelenting heat and humidity created a daunting climate for the European.

Departing From Java: Javanese Labour, Migration And Diaspora, Andy Scott Chang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Under globalization, guest worker programs are increasingly touted as a “win-win” solution for regularizing cross-border mobility. While such temporary migration schemes enable destination states to procure a flexible labour pool, they are said to benefit origin states through skill and remittance transfers. The Indonesian state, nonetheless, is often perceived as bereft of the capacity to harness labour export for development. Departing from Java complicates this narrative of administrative failure by analyzing diaspora through the prisms of empire, state-building, and feminism. Placing migration in contexts that are local and global, imperial and postcolonial, and authoritarian and democratic, the edited volume examines …

With A Little Help From My (Undesirable) Friends: The Influence Of Sex Ratio On Preferences For The Relative Mate Value Of Friends, Bryan Kwok Cheng Choy

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The present research examined whether who men and women choose to befriend reflects evolved desires for managing intrasexual competition for mates. It is reasoned that individuals should display a stronger preference for others of relatively lower mate value to oneself when the local ecology exhibits signs of intense intrasexual competition (when the operational sex ratio [OSR] is most unfavorable). Conversely, an unfavorable OSR was expected to reduce the desirability of others of similar or higher mate value. The possibility that this effect would be sex differentiated was also examined. In particular, it was reasoned that these predictions should hold for …

Minding Other People's Business: Community Attachment And Anticipated Negative Emotion In An Extended Norm Activation Model, Sonny Rosenthal, Kang Leng Ho

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study extended the norm activation model in the context of litter reduction to explain self-managing (e.g., avoiding littering) and other-managing (e.g., picking up litter) behaviors. Although those kinds of behaviors are conceptually distinct, prior research has not explained differences in their prediction. This study addresses that gap by considering the roles of community attachment and anticipated negative emotion in other-managing behavior. The addition of those predictors creates a second explanatory pathway in the norm activation model. Results showed awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, and community attachment predicted personal norm (R2 = 0.54), which predicted self-managing behavior (R2 = …

Living And Learning In A Lockdown: 5 Ways To Stay Productive And Entertained At Home, Ishan Singh

Social Space

If nothing else, the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me that staying at home is tougher than it seems. For introverts like myself, hunkering indoors should come naturally—even pre-coronavirus, I didn't get out a whole lot. Yet the experience has turned out to be very different when hanging out at home becomes less of a pastime and more of national responsibility.

Learning To Leave: Filipino Families And The Making Of The Global Filipino Nurse, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This chapter investigates how this process of reconfiguring the “social” plays out in the context of the Philippines’ labor export system and pervasive culture of emigration. Focusing on the case of Filipino nursing graduates seeking to work overseas, this chapter discusses how the success of the Philippines’ labor-brokering process relies on individuals who can take on the responsibility of transforming themselves, mainly through education and training, into desirable workers for future employers. While the migration literature had largely framed emigration as an individual aspiration and project, this chapter demonstrates how families subsidize the Philippine state’s labor export system by taking …

For Cosmopolitan, Public, And Reflexive Sociology, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Is sociological theory up to the challenge of understanding and explaining the phenomenon? I think that the kind of sociological theory capable of meeting this challenge has to be cosmopolitan, public, and reflexive. To understand the social and political impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to embrace what Ulrich Bech called "methodological cosmopolitan" to investigate a multitude of networks, mechanisms, and processes through which the pandemic reverberates across national borders. At the same time, this cosmopolitan sociology has to be publicly oriented, addressing head-on the urgent matters of concern among citizens, rather than driven by discipline-specific debates that are …

Life Course Pathways From Childhood Socioeconomic Status To Later-Life Cognition: Evidence From The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, Emily A. Greenfield, Sara Moorman, Annika Marie Rieger

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

ObjectivesA growing body of research indicates that older adults are at greater risk for poorer cognition if they experienced low socioeconomic status (SES) as children. Guided by life course epidemiology, this study aimed to advance understanding of processes through which childhood SES influences cognition decades later, with attention to the role of scholastic performance in adolescence and SES in midlife.MethodWe used data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), which has followed a cohort of high school graduates since they were 18 years old in 1957. Childhood SES was measured prospectively in adolescence, and measures of memory and language/executive functioning were …

Early Detection Of Mild Cognitive Impairment With In-Home Sensors To Monitor Behavior Patterns In Community-Dwelling Senior Citizens In Singapore: Cross-Sectional Feasibility Study, Iris Rawtaer, Rathi Mahendran, Ee Heok Kua, Hwee-Pink Tan, Hwee Xian Tan, Tih-Shih Lee, Tze Pin Ng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Background: Dementia is a global epidemic and incurs substantial burden on the affected families and the health care system. A window of opportunity for intervention is the predementia stage known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Individuals often present to services late in the course of their disease and more needs to be done for early detection; sensor technology is a potential method for detection.Objective: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to establish the feasibility and acceptability of utilizing sensors in the homes of senior citizens to detect changes in behaviors unobtrusively.Methods: We recruited 59 community-dwelling seniors (aged >65 years …

Covid-19 Has Rewritten Social Narratives. What We Now Need Is A Unifying Mindset, Arthur Adimoelia

Social Space

As COVID-19 cases climb into the millions and the world scrambles to contain its spread, many fingers are pointed at different members of society for not taking social distancing and other mitigating measures seriously.

Strengthening Social Fabric And Quality Of Life, Singapore Management University

Research Collection Office of Research

In this booklet, read about our research in the area of “Strengthening Social Fabric and Quality of Life”.

Contents:

Well-being of People, Groups, Organisations, Societies

• Serving the Underserved
• Does Family Background Affect Socioeconomic Mobility?
• Becoming a Happy Analyst
• Effective Childcare Subsidies
• Birds of a Feather Flock Together

Successful Ageing of People, of Populations

• Economic and Social Aspects of Ageing Successfully
• Exploring the Effectiveness of Smart Technologies in Eldercare
• Keeping our Silver Edge Sharp
• Sleep Quality & Dementia

Social Inclusion, Exclusion, Inequality

• The Helping Hand of Diversity
• Protecting Vulnerable Adults
• Finding the Path to an Inclusive Society
• Well-being of Singapore Youth …

What Makes A Good Person?, Ishan Singh

Social Space

A few weeks ago, my editor sent me this New York Times article about “how to be good”, asking if I'd be interested to pen a commentary based on a similar premise. It seemed easy enough at the time, so I readily agreed. But once I got down to actually thinking about the subject, I found myself at a loss for words.

Art Attack! Tanya Wilson's Creative Mission To Engage Children On Social Issues, Singapore Management University

Social Space

Meet Tanya Wilson, 41, co-founder of EYEYAH!, an interactive platform that uses visually arresting design and artworks to educate children on important social issues like internet safety, healthy eating, mental health, climate change and so on. The mother of two primary-school-aged daughters is no stranger to the creative industry, having spent two decades developing content and experiences for the likes of Netflix, Facebook, Nike, Coca-Cola, Tiger Beer and Heineken. These days, Tanya and her co-founder Steve Lawler are busy equipping young learners with creative thinking skills which, they believe, are essential to solving the world's complex challenges. ISHAN SINGH …