Maybe Singapore is also fast becoming a M-shape society like
Japan and Taiwan.
What is an M-shape society? Read wikipedia below:
‘M-shape society’ is an observation put forward by the Japanese
business strategist and writer Kenichi Ohmae. According to his
observation, Ohmae argued that the structure of Japanese society
has emerged into a ‘M-shape’ distribution.
In a well-developed modern society, the distribution of classes
is in a ‘normal distribution’ pattern, and the middle class forms
the bulk of the society.
However, in the emergence of the ‘M-shape society’, the middle
class in the society gradually disappeared. A very few people in
this middle class may climb up the ladder and squeeze into the
upper class, while the others in the middle class gradually sank to
the lower classes.
These people experienced a deterioration in living standard.
They may face threat of unemployment, or their average salary are
dropping. Gradually, they can only live a way the lower classes
live: e.g. take buses instead of driving their own car, cut their
budget for meals instead of dining at better restaurants, spend
less in consumer goods…
There may be still remarkable progress in economic development,
the GNP may still rise, there may still be
economic growth, and the national average salary may still rise.
However, the wealth increase in this growth may concentrate in the
pockets of the very few rich people in the society. The masses
indeed cannot benefit from the growth, and their living standard is
on the decline.
What was worse, the upward social ladder seems to have
disappeared – opportunities and fair competition become fewer and
fewer. People in the lower class can no longer climb up the ladder:
they cannot earn a high-paid job or have stable employment, even if
they have a high level of education. The places in the upper class
were reserved by the upper class for their descendants.
This notion became a hotly-discussed topic in Japan. And as
Ohmae’s book was translated into Chinese version, it also became a
hotly-discussed topic in Taiwan, and later in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, there are scholars, intellectuals and
social-scientists arguing whether the conditions of Hong Kong fits
the notion Ohmae put forward: e.g. diminishing social mobility and
upward social ladder, the general income-decline and threat of
unemployment of the middle-classes, the change of competition rules
for social advancement (such as pursuit for better schools) in
which status advancement is no longer based on merits or
achievements, but on other certain criteria such as family wealth
or background.
The lives of the lower classes seem more miserable than the past
even when there is still economic progress and rise in the
GDP.
It has become a concern for the government as the income gap
between the lower classes and the upper classes has been widening
in recent years.
