Political Discourse and Aging in a Neoliberal Singapore: Models of Citizenship, Older Adults and Policy Initiatives

ABSTRACT

Singapore now faces one of the fastest aging populations in the world, leading the country’s political leaders to fear the implications of population aging for the country’s economic viability. We analyzed National Day Rally speeches from 2011 to 2015 by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to examine how policymakers conceptualized the challenges related to its aging population. Findings point to the government’s manifest and latent emphasis on its economic viability when developing social policies to address the well-being of its aging population. Its approaches to welfare provision are informed by a neoliberalist agenda that requires its citizens to exercise personal responsibility and self-reliance, and to rely on their family and community for mutual assistance. Despite its highly interventionist approach, the government is clear about its residual role in the provision of safety nets. A neoliberalist reconceptualization of citizenship serves to restrict older citizen’s claims to basic social assistance.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• policymaking
• successful aging
• Singapore

Acknowledgments

The leader author would like to thank Asia Research Institute for the visiting senior fellowship award and Adelphi University for the sabbatical leave and research release awards that allowed him to conduct and complete this study.

Declaration of contribution of authors

The first author conceptualized the project. He searched and acquired the necessary archival data, organized the data analyses and led the writing of the manuscript.

The second author helped with the data analyses, wrote literature review, reviewed the manuscript and formatted the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

Both the first and second authors have no conflict of interest.

Statement of ethical approval as appropriate

Data for this study were publicly available archival data of speeches by the Prime Minister of Singapore and as such this study was exempt from human subject approval.

Additional information

Funding

This study received no direct funding. However, the senior visiting research fellow award from Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore afforded the first author the opportunity to visit the National Archives of Singapore for purposes of data collection.