Indeed I cannot find any cab driver in the 3rd world with a
University degree. In fact, there's a majority of pple in the 3rd
world w/o a degree or even any form of education. Again the
argument here can be put to the half glass full or half glass empty
view point. You can see it as a governmental failure that a
univeersity graduate cannot find a job here and have to "resort" to
cab driving. But on the other hand, is it not to the credit to the
government that the general population of Singapore are much more
educated than people from the 3rd world.
I am unsure of the numbers of cab drivers in Singapore with a
degree and the nature of their degree. But with the increasing
number of graduates, this is the expected trend if they are not
exported out. I mean, seriously, there are only so many "managers"
available and we are having so many grads coming out each year,
surely the Singapore job market cannot accomodate them all.
You were right in saying that we spend hundreds and thousands in
education, in fact a closer estimate would be about close to a
million per student's education from pre-primary to degree. A good
deal of this million is subsidised by Singapore. And armed with
this education, they can easily find a job in another part of the
world, subjected to the nature of their degree.
People need to realise that there's a limit to the number of "good"
jobs that can be created here in Singapore, but put any Singaporean
on the world map, he/she is likely to be more qualified than
someone else on the globe. There's a few expanding economies that
would gladly give jobs to qualified Singaporeans, Australia, New
Zealand and China...just to name a few.
With regards to whether a cab driver here or in 3rd world would be
happier. Well, one have to really do a general survey to find out.
But based on the factors that you have listed, you seemed to have
not included non-tangible terms such as comfort and safety. Cab
drivers in 3rd world and in certain first world are more likely to
be subject to get mugged or simply shot in the head. From what I
recall, cab driving in Singapore was a rather lucrative job. I am
not too sure about the condition at the moment, how much exactly
does an average driver earn and such. But considering that one of
my uncle and my friend's father, both are cab driver, and both
being able to not only support their family of four and see both
children tru university education; the monetary payment should be
close to satisfactory. I am not too sure that a cab driver in some
3rd world country would be able to do the same even with the
current conditions that you have mentioned.
