Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

Table 5.5 Distribution of resident private household and car owners by type of dwelling,
1990
Source: Dept of Statistics (1994:8, table 8).
Note:
*HDB=Housing and Development Board dwellings.
**Percentage of all households that own cars.
SINGAPORE AND THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS 147
These include 99-year-leasehold high-rise condominiums in suburban areas, which
provide very similar conditions to public-housing living–often with reduced living
spaces–but cost about three times as much. Others at the low end of private
accommodation live in terrace houses-on-the-ground. In an exploratory study of
households who live in the lowest rung of private properties, Foo (1995) identifies a
pattern of coping with tight budgets. 6 Significantly, just under 50 per cent of these
households still express a desire to ‘upgrade’ their accommodation.
In order to sustain their residential preference and own a car at the same time,
the following management strategies are common: (i) not only are both spouses
already working, one may take an additional job (see Table 5.6); (ii) compromise
on the quality of both residence and car and other consumer items; (iii) forgoing
some items of consumption, such as annual family holidays abroad, sometimes to
the detriment of the overall quality of family life. In all these instances, households
live tightly on the margin of their income or even slightly beyond. The end result is
aptly summarised by one journalist, who refers to them as the group of
Singaporeans who have ‘Ralph Lauren tastes but are on Stockmart budgets (after
making car payments and mortgages)’ (Straits Times, 28 May 1995). The need to
compromise is often experienced by many middle-class households as ‘status
degradation’. For example, as a result of compromise, each subsequent car
purchased becomes a lesser car than the one just sold, in terms of size, make,
vintage or all three.
These anxiety-laden households, which include newly married professional
couples who have yet to acquire the prized possessions of either a private property
or a car, live under heavy anxieties concerning their ability to maintain what they
perceive as a preferred, or even necessary, lifestyle. Their aspirations have
aroused significant government attention and led to certain policy changes. First, to