yax-433 The NTUC Income survey

April 2005

The NTUC Income survey

In August last year, for some unknown reason, NTUC Income decided to mine its massive email database, picking out a cross section of 300 persons for a survey about social and political attitudes. It received 105 responses for its online survey, which I think is pretty small a sample, but anyway, for what it's worth, here are the results.

Income is the insurance co-operative of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). It sounds like a small Fabian outfit, but over the years, it has grown and grown and today it's one of the largest insurers in Singapore.

Income sent the results to Straits Times and Today, but except for a small write-up in Today, the matter has been ignored.

Below, I will first present the data and comments released by NTUC Income. Then I will add my own comment.

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As released by NTUC Income:

I-Survey Report : Our Focus for the Future (Public)

Introduction

Our new Prime Minister has asked the people to suggest what they like to see in the future of Singapore. We carried out an I-survey with members of the public to seek their views regarding suggestions to various aspects of life.

A total of 300 market research participants, aged 21-50, were invited for this survey.

Results

		All	<30yr	>30yr
	Number of respondents	105	37	68
	Respondents were asked to select the statements which best describe their views for the following aspects [1]
1.	National Service: We should review the current arrangements - to reduce the duration of national service and pay more to our NSmen	58%	49%	63%
	We should keep our current arrangement for national service, as it has served us well	42%	51%	37%
2.	Education: We should reduce the stress to students, and if necessary, be prepared to accept a lower standard of education	52%	41%	59%
	We should maintain the current high standard of our education	48%	59%	41%
3.	Entertainment and Media: We should relax our current standard to widen the choice of media	64%	76%	57%
	We should maintain our current standard, as it provides a sufficient choice of entertainment and media	36%	24%	43%
4.	Jobs: We should maintain our current strategy to be globally competitive	56%	54%	57%
	We should give more preference to create jobs for local workers, even if it leads to a higher cost to be paid by society	44%	46%	43%
5.	Medical Expenses: We should reduce medical expenses for the old and for the poor, even if it means higher costs to be borne by society	61%	57%	63%
	We should keep to our current strategy and financing of medical expenses	39%	43%	37%
6.	Transport: We should keep to our current strategy and financing of transport expenses	55%	49%	59%
	We should reduce transport costs, even if it means higher costs to be borne by society through taxes	45%	51%	41%
7.	Unemployment: The unemployed should be realistic and accept lower wages	71%	68%	74%
	We should provide some subsidy for the wages to be raised to a more acceptable level, even if the cost has to be borne by society	29%	32%	26%
8.	Foreign Workers: We should continue to employ foreign workers, to keep our business costs at a competitive level	51%	53%	50%
	We should reduce our employment of foreign workers to keep more jobs for local workers, even if the cost has to be increased	49%	47%	50%
9.	Housing: We should allow the property prices to drop, to be affordable for the younger generation	56%	65%	51%
	We should maintain our property prices at the current level, as many people have already invested in them	44%	35%	39%
10.	Cars: We should keep our restriction on vehicle ownership, so that our roads can continue to be congestion free	66%	54%	72%
	We should reduce the cost of vehicle ownership, and accept a higher degree on congestion on our roads	34%	46%	28%
11.	Old Age Pension: We should provide a monthly pension to people above age 80 to help them to cope with the cost of living	72%	62%	78%
	We should not provide this monthly pension, as it will be costly to the society	28%	38%	22%
12.	Income Taxes: We should keep income tax at a low level, and let people pay directly for the cost of services	52%	59%	49%
	We should raise the income tax for the people who are well off, so that the taxes can help to reduce the general cost of living	48%	41%	51%
13.	Involvement in the Community: We should spend more time and be involved in our community, to build a better society	79%	73%	82%
	We are already sufficiently involved, and do not need to change our present habit	21%	27%	18%
14.	Spending in Neighbouring Countries: We should spend more money at home, to create jobs for other Singaporeans	71%	70%	72%
	We should continue to shop and spend in our neighbouring countries, as it gives good value for money	29%	30%	28%
15.	Risk Taking: The environment makes it difficult for us to take risk	74%	70%	76%
	The environment already allows us to take risk and be entrepreneurial	26%	30%	24%
16.	Focus: We are too focused on self interest, and need to be more generous towards others	71%	70%	72%
	We are already quite generous towards the needs of other people and society	29%	30%	28%
17.	Government: We should continue to have one dominant party to give stability to the government	54%	57%	53%
	We should move toward a multi-party system	46%	43%	47%
18.	Scholarships: We should replace scholarships with grants, loans and bursaries	76%	76%	76%
	We should keep the current scholarship system	24%	24%	24%
19.	Censorship: We should abolish censorship and let people choose what they wish to see, read or listen	50%	57%	47%
	We should continue the current practice of censorship	50%	43%	53%
20.	Equal Opportunities: We should continue the current practice of not regulating discriminatory practices	54%	64%	49%
	We should introduce laws to combat sex, racial or religious discrimination	46%	36%	51%
21.	Future Political Leaders: We should encourage youth to be active and become future leaders	92%	89%	94%
	We should continue to select future leaders by invitation	8%	11%	6%

General Comments by NTUC Income

1. Majority of respondents feel that Singaporeans should spend more time to be involved in the community, in order to build a better society. They also feel that we should provide monthly pension to the elderly and encourage the youths to be active to become future leaders. (Q11, 13 & 21)

2. Majority feel that the unemployed should be realistic and accept lower wages, and most feel that we should reduce medical expenses for the old and for the poor. (Q5 & 7)

3. Respondents aged below 30 tend to feel that we should relax our current standard to widen the choice of media, and that we should allow property prices to drop so as to be affordable to the younger generation. (Q3 & 9)

4. Respondents aged above 30 tend to feel that we should reduce the stress of education to students and review the current arrangement for National Service. They also feel that we should maintain our restriction on vehicle ownership in order to keep our roads congestion free. (q1, 2 & 10)

Survey opened: 19 Aug 2004
Survey closed: 30 Aug 2004

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Comments by Yawning Bread

As the sample size is quite small, and I don't know to what extent NTUC Income's email base is representative of Singapore's population as a whole, I will only comment on those results that show an large majority in one direction.

On Entertainment and Media (Q3), some 64% agreed that "we should relax our current standard to widen the choice of media." It's not a very well worded sentence. The word 'standard' seems to suggest censorship standard, but 'choice of media' seems to mean more newspapers or more TV channels.

The supporting question was Q19 "We should abolish censorship". Note, it didn't say 'relax', but 'abolish'. 50% said yes. 50% said we should continue with the current censorship. Alas, there ought to have been 2 other options for more meaningful answers: a "relax but not abolish" option and a "tighten censorship" option. Even so, 50% said 'abolish'.

Anyway, reading from Q3 and Q19, public opinion seems to be leaning towards more liberalisation, especially as those under 30 years old were 19 percentage points more in favour of wider choice of media, and 10 percentage points more in favour of abolishing censorship, compared to the older respondents.

On subsidies to support wages (Q7 Unemployment), there is a strong majority against the idea. Some 71% opposed it.

On cars and road congestion (Q10) a clear majority of 66% support the present restrictions on car ownership. However those under 30 are 18 percentage points less likely to support these restrictions compared to the older ones.

72% were in favour of the idea to provide an old-age pension to those over 80 (Q11). This is supported by Q5, where 61% said we should provide medical subsidies to the old and the poor. The difference between those under 30 and above 30 may not be significant.

I thought 4 questions were badly phrased, in the sense that one side of the issue sounded politically correct. Thus it would hardly have been a surprise that the results were overwhelmingly one-sided. They were:

Q13 - whether we should be more involved in our community;

Q14 - whether we should shop in Singapore to create jobs for Singaporeans;

Q16 - whether we should be more generous to others;

Q21 - whether we should encourage youth to be politically active.

The scholarships question (Q18) turned up a surprise (for me, that is). Some 76% felt that scholarships should be replaced by grants and loans. People seem to hate the idea of being bonded to serving the scholarship-giving organisation, in most cases, the civil service.

Another interesting result was in Q17, on one-party government. 54% agreed with the statement: "We should continue to have one dominant party to give stability to the government"; no real difference between young and old.

Footnotes

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Addenda

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