In 2018, Jon M. Chu’s film ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ made waves in Hollywood as a commercial box-office success, reaping US$80 million in global box office revenue within twelve days of its theatrical release. The film, which centred on the lives of the wealthy, upper echelon of Singaporean society, depicted the city-state as a dazzling and opulent cosmopolitan hub where the world’s richest gather. It featured iconic national landmarks, including the Marina Bay Sands and Botanic Gardens, which have come to define the country as a must-visit tourist destinations.
It is therefore no surprise that non-locals might assume that the average Singaporean’s daily lifestyle is one of extravagance and affluence. Perhaps, in some measurable ways, such an assumption would be accurate. According to the UBS & Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2024, average adult wealth in Singapore stood at US$397,708, placing the country eighth globally. The city-state is also lauded for having among the highest standards of living worldwide: it ranks in the top 30 countries in the Mercer Quality of Life Survey 2024, which assesses a country’s urban liveability, infrastructural reliability and cultural diversity.
Yet, it is important to recognise that Singapore’s pristine cityscape and reputation as a futuristic utopia is built on the labour of an ‘invisible’ workforce whose representation is excluded from Chu’s depiction of Singaporean society in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’: its transient migrant worker population. Comprising approximately 40% of Singapore’s total workforce as of June 2024, transient migrant workers are integral to the growth and development of the country’s economy and infrastructural landscape, with their labour making up for the local labour shortage resulting from both an ageing population and declining birth rates. Yet, despite this, Singapore continues to grapple with its approach to migrant workers’ rights, particularly regarding its transient migrant labour population. Notably, such is reflected in its labour rights index score of 49 out of the maximum 100 in 2024 (a score 50 and below implies a general lack of decent labour conditions).
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore was praised for its efficient testing and tracing measures. However, surging rates of infection within the migrant worker population quickly drew widespread attention – both locally and internationally – to the inequality in housing conditions of migrant workers and the wider local population. As migrant workers accounted for approximately 90% of the 60,000 confirmed cases, humanitarian concerns with regards to the migrant labour rights were reignited with renewed vigour. With poorly-ventilated single rooms and communal bathrooms shared by up to twenty men, the cramped, overcrowded and filthy conditions of migrant dormitories had rapidly developed into hotbeds of viral infection. This was further exacerbated with the implementation of circuit breaker lockdown measures that only further confined workers to remain within these dormitories, placing not only their physical but also mental health at risk. Studies revealed that following lockdown regulations, symptoms of elevated anxiety were detected among migrant workers, with reports of multiple suicide attempts within these dormitories.
Whereas most Singaporeans are able to remain in the comfort of their homes in their high-rise housing estates, the living conditions within which the migrant workers are confined reflects glaring inequalities. Despite their significant contribution to the local economy and landscape, the possibility of conceiving Singapore as ‘home’ remains vexed for migrant workers, as they are relegated to the lowest rungs of the existing social hierarchy, treated as ‘others’ and made to feel unwanted. However, this exclusion is not purely a product of economic inequality: it also reflects prevalent societal attitudes rooted in complex socio-economic dynamics as xenophobic rhetoric and meritocratic ideals justify marginalisation.
Social, Economic, and Political Barriers to Belonging
At the 2019 Singapore Bicentennial Conference organised by the Institute of Policy Studies, a prominent academic and diplomat, Tommy Koh, opined that the city-state was a ‘first world country with third world citizens’. Its citizens, Koh asserts, markedly lack the civic-mindedness and empathy that comes with living in a cosmopolitan city like Singapore. Here, the majority of migrant workers traditionally hail from developing or semi-developed countries like Bangladesh, India and China, and are primarily motivated to work in Singapore to seek higher wages and to provide for their families. In fact, the country remains a popular location among migrant workers due to its supposedly superior labour regulations and security, such as the mandatory requirement for employers to provide health insurance and proper housing. Yet, as racist and xenophobic attitudes still largely permeate Singaporean society, these workers are routinely shunned by the public and oftentimes are reduced to harmful stereotypes, perceived as ‘dark’, ‘filthy’ and ‘conniving’ criminals.
Critics have also panned the Singapore government’s treatment of its migrant labour population in previous migrant worker-related incidents. In the aftermath of the 2013 Little India riots, which saw a violent clash between law enforcement and South Asian migrant workers, then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong maintained a strict disciplinary stance against the migrant labour population — vowing to deal with those involved with the ‘full force of the law’. 28 workers were charged in court for their participation in the riot, while a further 53 migrant workers were deported for failing to disperse on police orders. Notably, in a statement released by the Ministry of Home Affairs, those deported were viewed as ‘threats to public security’, whose continued presence in Singapore was regarded as ‘undesirable’. However, activists and migrant rights organisations were quick to point out the lack of attention to the overwhelming dissatisfaction of workers’ labour and living conditions that had culminated in the riot in the first place. Urging ‘greater transparency’ in the deportation proceedings, Human Rights Watch’s Asia deputy director, Phil Robertson, said to the BBC: ‘No one is excusing the people who used violence on that day… but in the case of the deportations it’s not clear how the decision was taken, what evidence was brought against these people, or whether they had the opportunity to present their version of the story.’.
Calls for the spatial segregation of living quarters between the local citizenry and migrant labour population – a manifestation of ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) syndrome – are also often couched in prejudiced terms. In 2008, about 1,400 residents living in the upper middle-class neighbourhoods of Serangoon Gardens petitioned against the construction of a migrant dormitory next to their estates. While the key reasons for the petition initially included concerns regarding overcrowding and traffic congestion, protests gradually began to take on a seemingly more classist and racist character, opposing the ‘alien’ presence of migrant workers living in proximity to locals. Concerns were raised regarding migrant workers potentially ‘sullying’ the neighbourhood by littering and spitting, and about their ‘rowdy’ behaviour posing a threat to residents’ safety. In recent years, in countries with high homeownership rates like Singapore (89.7% in 2023, one of the highest globally), and where the value of property owned corresponds closely to valuations of individual net worth and identity, local homeowners also oppose migrant presence in residential areas because of the expected detrimental impacts it would have on the economic value of their estates.
Relatedly, growing disquiet has been expressed by citizens concerning the erosion of a unique ‘Singaporean’ identity, with migrant populations’ elevated visibility. So widespread was this that in a 2013 New Year’s message by then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, emphasis was placed on ‘maintaining a strong Singaporean core’ when addressing the economic imperative to balance an ageing local population. Notably, what this ‘core’ encompasses is rarely made explicit; in Singapore as in many countries, however, access to shared language and ‘tolerant’ cultural values is often alluded to. More specific to the Singaporean context, for domestic-born citizens, ‘coming of age’ is punctuated by various ‘rites of passage’, such as serving the mandatory two-year conscription required of all young able-bodied men; having not participated in rituals, migrants might then be viewed as ‘free riding’ on ‘collective sacrifice’.
Echoing trends across Europe and the US, the arrival of foreign-born workers as cheap(er) labour have also come to be perceived as a threat to the social and economic status of the nation’s less privileged especially in light of a widening income and class inequality amongst its local population. Despite the described aged-related demographic pressures, allowing transient migrant workers indefinite or permanent right to remain in Singapore was viewed by some as a burden on the country’s national resources, further fuelling reluctance to facilitate their integration: in a 2020 study, 43.6% of Singaporeans agreed that immigration increases unemployment rates, with higher earners more likely to disagree.
If the prospect of a better income is a major draw for many immigrants to Singapore, however, it is not the chief driver for all: humanitarian crises have become increasingly important push-factors. There is reason to suspect that this lack of agency over leaving the place where they grew up further prevents diaspora migrant workers’ from acquiring a new sense of ‘home’. Following the 2021 Myanmar military coup, for example, mass violence has been wrought against civilians. Approximately 2.3 million were displaced from their homes and a further 18.6 million are in dire need of humanitarian aid. Resultantly, outward migration rates have since skyrocketed, with more than ten million migrating out of the country. Additionally, climate change is also becoming a key motivator for migration in countries like Bangladesh, with cyclones, droughts and floods contributing to the mass displacement of millions. According to an ILO policy brief report, by 2050, one in seven Bangladeshis may be displaced by adverse climate change effects. Yet with diminishing demand for migrant labour, especially in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, migrant workers are rendered more vulnerable to deportation to the very crises from which they originally fled, so long as work visas remain more accessible than asylum status. This is indeed often the case in Singapore, given the country’s refusal to sign the UNHCR 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, citing ‘limited land space and high population density’. As such, labour becomes not only a route for escaping material scarcity, but also of protection from immediate physical harm.
For economic and refugee-migrants, then, Singapore may provide an – albeit precarious – place to stay. But with widespread cultural antagonism directed towards them, in addition to a material ‘othering’ through starkly different living conditions, migrant workers’ sense of ‘belonging’ in Singapore is widespread.
Historical Origins
It is worthy of note, however, that Singapore has not always been so selective in who it chooses to grant citizenship to. Before World War 2, Singapore (then under British colonial control) had adopted an extremely liberal stance on the accordance of citizenship to new migrants. This arose from the need to provide additional labour for plantations and trading ports to serve the economic interests of the British colonial government. This liberal approach to citizenship persisted even after British withdrawal from Southeast Asia when the Singapore Citizenship Ordinance of 1957 was established, marking the first time its people were officially recognised as Singapore citizens and those born in Singapore or Malaya and British citizens with at least two years of residency were offered citizenship.
However, following Singapore’s 1965 merger with Malaysia, citizenship requirements grew more stringent as it adopted a single nationality system based on Malaysia’s constitution, revoking the Singaporean people’s former right to dual citizenship. As an ‘accidental’ state that gained independence through sudden expulsion from Malaysia, the perceived vulnerability of Singapore as a small, natural resource-scarce and predominantly Chinese-populated nation-state surrounded by majority Malay-Muslim states thus shifted the local government’s focus to building a strong, united and secure Singapore with citizens that have a vested, long-term interest and commitment in contributing to the country’s future. In other words, a ‘loyalty’ to Singapore. This change in focus ushered the rise of the exclusive conception of citizenship that we see in Singapore today. Citizenship is now increasingly difficult to obtain for new migrants; indeed, it is a near impossibility for transient, low-skilled and low-waged migrant workers. Whilst skilled migrants and professionals are given access to various social benefits like the ability to bring their families with them to Singapore and encouraged to become permanent residents or citizens in the future, transient migrant workers do not enjoy this same privilege. This is only further exacerbated by the near constant policing of migrant bodies in neighbourhoods like Little India and Serangoon, where the transient migrant labour community is frequently subject to constant scrutiny and heavy surveillance. Viewed as ‘needed but not wanted’ persons whose right to remain is unprotected, a sense of ‘homelessness’ is an everyday experience for transient migrant workers in Singapore.
Looking Out
This sense of exclusion, alienation and constant feeling of ‘homelessness’ among transient migrant workers, however, is hardly unique to migrants in Singapore. In fact, such a feeling might be felt much more acutely in other contexts. For instance, in the Gulf states, the Kafala system is the predominant migrant labour system adopted. It defines the relationship between the migrant worker and their kafeel – usually their sponsor or employer – and has been criticised as resembling ‘modern slavery’ insofar as that enables the subordination of a large migrant majority under the control of a privileged, local minority. Often, this exploitative labour relationship takes on great significance due to the Gulf states’ similar heavy reliance on migrant labour to sustain their economies: migrants make up approximately 88%, 74% and 77% of the total population in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar respectively. Meanwhile, in the U.S., immigrants make up 19% of the total labour force and have been key contributors to the domestic economy, generating $1.6 trillion in economic growth in 2022. Despite this, immigration remains a contentious issue in American politics: it was central to the successful election campaign of Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024, and motivated his famous drive, once in office, to ‘build a wall’. While the U.S-Mexico border wall was proposed as a solution to counter undocumented immigration, many have instead come to criticise it as a monument of white supremacy and racial division: an enduring reminder to Latinos of their unwanted presence in Trump’s White America.
How, then, do we begin to mitigate the issue of migrants’ self- and externally-perceived ‘homelessness’? What confers a person the right to call a country their ‘home’? Singapore prides itself on its meritocratic ideals and merit-based categorisation of its migrant workforce, which values migrants’ economic output above all. However, closer inspection reveals racial and class inequalities within its society that perpetuate the unequal capacity to call the city-state ‘home’. Underlying racist, xenophobic and classist sentiments serve as a divisive force between the local population and the migrant workforce; consequently, social tensions simmer beneath the surface and potentially erupt, as seen in the 2013 Little India riots. Recalling Koh’s earlier description of Singaporeans as ‘third world citizens in a first world country’, if Singapore wants to establish itself as a truly egalitarian ‘city of the future’, a reassessment of its treatment of migrant workers and its migrant labour policies is necessary. After all, research has shown that social cohesion, not social division, is a more effective force for advancing social progress and creating ‘a virtuous cycle of productivity outcomes and economic growth’.