If Singapore is to remain an inclusive, vibrant multicultural nation, it needs to reduce the disparity between citizens, high-income expatriates and a massive, low-wage migrant workforce.
Key words: Singapore, migrants, workers, social cohesion
Singapore’s reputation as a clean, safe and efficient global city has long made it a magnet for foreign talent and capital. The state has managed this diversity through the existing Chinese-Malay-Indian-Other (CMIO) framework, forging a shared identity out of an immigrant population, while keeping a proportion of migrants permanently temporary.
Today, however, these rigid bureaucratic categories have reached the limits of their utility. The primary social fault lines are no longer traditional ‘racial’ divides, but structural cleavages in socio-economic class, nationality, and residency status—particularly between citizens, high-income expatriates and a massive, low-wage migrant workforce.
Singapore accommodates a temporary migrant workforce that comprises a quarter of the population—almost 1.4 million people. These labourers perform the ‘dirty, dangerous, and demeaning’ jobs that local citizens shun. They are excluded from permanent residency and family reunion. Housed in regimented dormitories at the city’s fringes, they live spatially segregated lives that effectively alienate them from the broader metropolitan commons.
When paths cross, everyday encounters often reveal deep-seated anxieties. On public transport, low-wage workers frequently face silent rejection—passengers covering their noses or moving away from them. In the public imagination, their unsupervised presence in enclaves such as Little India on Sundays is met with suspicion, viewed as a persistent danger. This exposes the uncomfortable paradox of a city-state deeply reliant on migrant labour yet treating their physical presence as an unwanted intrusion.
COVID-19 marked a turning point, after mass outbreaks at dormitories revealed the lack of consideration that had been given to this community. As a result, there was widespread public and policy recognition that, collectively, migrant workers were an integral part of the nation. There was an outpouring of sympathy and donations for those who were confined to dormitories and an increased awareness about their lack of freedom and difficult working conditions. This has translated to better quality dormitories and more support for action against criminal employers. However, widespread systemic change is yet to happen.
Humanising the transient workforce
To cultivate a truly cohesive society, Singapore must move beyond viewing transient populations through the lens of economic utility. The state and employers typically have a utilitarian view of the low-wage worker as a form of ‘technology’ or a ‘machine’ programmed for physical tasks. Within this framework, the worker at rest is deemed ‘unproductive’ and ‘out of place.’ Despite the existence of a workers’ compensation scheme covering foreign workers, the person is treated as an easily replaceable externality to be discarded once injured. This rationalisation has historically resulted in abject living conditions, characterised by overcrowded dormitories and poor nutrition.
The limitations of this approach were exposed during a riot of Indian migrant workers in 2013 sparked by the death in a traffic incident of a migrant worker. The state’s response—deportations of alleged rioters, alcohol bans, and encouraging migrants to restrict their leisure activities to purpose-built recreation centres—managed the crisis through physical separation and increased surveillance. Tangible structural reforms: extending Employment Act protections to foreign domestic workers, penalising wage theft, improving dormitory nutrition, and integrating temporary migrants into neighbourhood activities remain piecemeal. Singapore has a history of recognising contributions of migrant labourers to the growth of the nation-state through naturalisation and access to state welfare schemes. Extending this to current migrant workers would send the signal that such roles are still a valuable aspect of nation-building.
The fallacy of co-ethnicity: Class cleavages within the CMIO grid
This socio-spatial discomfort is not confined to low-wage workers; it increasingly fractures co-ethnic communities, shattering the assumption that shared ancestry guarantees seamless integration. Over the past few decades, Singapore’s selective immigration policy that maintains ethno-racial balances within the population, has recruited high-income, well qualified professionals to bolster the economy and make up for the declining population. These men and women come from other Asian countries such as Malaysia, China and India, with the latter group making up the largest proportion of migrants within a single ethnic category. While these new Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and naturalised citizens are categorised under the ‘Indian’ label, this administrative grouping masks cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic divides.
These frictions manifest in both residential and cultural spheres. High-income NRIs largely reside in private condominiums, leading ‘parallel lives’ separate from local-born Singaporeans in public Housing Development Board estates. This class divide was illustrated by the dispute at the Mandarin Gardens condominium—dubbed ‘Mumbai Gardens’—where local residents revolted against Indian expatriates who dominated the management committee and sought to use communal funds for exclusive cultural activities.
Linguistic and cultural tensions also run deep. While local Indian identity has historically been synonymous with Tamil—the primary South Asian language taught in schools—the middle-class NRI influx drove a 100 percent increase in Hindi speakers in just a decade, leading to demands for Hindi classes in local public schools that local Tamils perceived as a threat to their ethnic identity. These tensions are exacerbated by a ‘civilisational discourse’ where local-born Indian Singaporeans may view newcomers as elitist and caste-conscious, while NRIs dismiss locals as having lost touch with ‘authentic’ Indian heritage through syncretic practices. Ultimately, socio-economic class and cultural differences have trumped historical affinities, generating deep resentments.
Activating Singapore’s hidden asset: Second-generation migrants
While first generation migrants present structural challenges, another demographic segment offers an unexploited opportunity: second-generation immigrants and children of intercultural marriages. One in three marriages in Singapore is now between a citizen and a foreigner, most of them from other parts of Asia. This has produced an ‘invisible’ population of young Singaporeans who speak fluent ‘Singlish’, look like locals, and are seamlessly integrated having been through the local school system. While this ‘invisibility advantage’ helps them escape the racial barriers and social isolation common in many other immigrant contexts, the rigid Chinese-Malay-Indian-Other system pigeonholes them into predefined racial categories. This systematically erases their recent immigrant histories and regional connections, representing a missed strategic opportunity for Singapore.
Regional peers already recognise the soft-power potential of such populations. Taiwan’s ‘New Southbound Policy’ encourages second-generation youth to maintain regional connections through language subsidies, exchange programmes, and educational incentives. Australia, where 30 percent of the population is foreign-born and which hosts a wide representation of people from different heritage backgrounds, has also benefitted from this type of diversity through initiatives like leveraging on global business connections and the bilingual capabilities of its immigrants. Singapore should similarly shift from ‘assimilation’ to ‘activation,’ cultivating these unique backgrounds as competitive advantages. This could include offering Southeast Asian languages in schools, providing regional study fellowships, and facilitating internships with Singaporean firms across ASEAN. These bicultural Singaporeans represent natural cultural bridges who can secure Singapore’s next chapter as a regional leader.
Conclusion: Toward a post-recognition politics
Singapore stands at a critical crossroads. The post-independence ‘politics of recognition’ that relied on the CMIO grid has run its course. To build a resilient, cohesive society, Singapore must move toward a ‘post-recognition politics’ that embraces complex and fluid identities that defy easy categorisation. It is a city that is superdiverse, made up of smaller identity groups and categories that don’t necessarily fall into clearly defined ethnic, national or cultural labels.
Sustainable integration cannot be achieved through top-down, scripted ‘mingling’ events that reinforce stereotypes. Instead, it must be fostered through organic, unscripted, everyday interactions in schools, workplaces, and the shared spaces of void decks, social media platforms and neighbourhood playgrounds. It also requires extending our circle of empathy and structural protection to the temporary migrant workers who build and sustain our city. If Singapore is to remain an inclusive, vibrant multicultural nation, it should recognise that diversity is not a bureaucratic grid to be managed, but an organic asset to be actively cultivated.
This article is part of a special series on ‘Governing for Growth: Democracy and Development in Southeast Asia’ – a joint initiative of Insights and Melbourne Asia Review. It marks this year’s Southeast Asia Update and Southeast Asia Oration by Indonesian Economist and former Minister of Finance of Indonesia, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, hosted by Asialink and Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, with support from the ASEAN-Australia Centre.
Image credit: Sabino Parente/Shutterstock.
