Low-income, lower-educated workers in Singapore face persistent barriers to economic mobility.
Photo by Singapore Stock Photos on Unsplash
The In-Work Poverty (IWP) study has found gaps in wages, training participation, job search outcomes and work-family experiences — pointing to disadvantages that can accumulate over time.
Understanding what enables some workers to progress — and what keeps others from doing so — is important for designing more effective policies and programmes that support upward mobility. To deepen our understanding of these pathways, Quantedge Foundation is supporting the Social Service Research Centre (SSR) at the National University of Singapore to conduct two studies drawing on data from the IWP panel.
The IWP study has followed young Singaporean workers over multiple waves, providing a rich longitudinal picture of how their work, wages, skills, social networks, family circumstances and well-being evolve over time.
The first study combines IWP data with in-depth interviews to understand lower-educated workers’ learning experiences and aspirations, including their perspectives on further education and the support they need to progress.
The second uses agent-based modelling to simulate how targeted training subsidies and stronger social ties between lower- and higher-educated workers could affect wages, psychological well-being and family well-being over time.
Together, the studies will help us better understand the experiences of low-income, lower-educated workers and explore what could support better career and life trajectories.