I suspect your sample size was heavily biased to your own social class. Singapore is ruthlessly capitalist, and can be a terrible place to be if you're poor or a foreign worker.
One Straits Times (local Pravda) story I recall was about one of those old ladies who cleans up in hawker centres, earning on the order of S$100/month. This is way below a living wage, even in Singapore, and there's no state pension in Singapore either, so this was the sum total of her income. Because she couldn't afford an apartment, she slept (illegally) on the "void deck" (ground floor, exposed to elements) of an HDB housing block.
None of this was news, mind you -- the news was the fact that somebody stole her life savings of $50 from a cookie jar, and this is not permissible in squeaky-clean Singapore.
Many maids are also kept in modern-day slavery, working 365/24/7 and literally locked into the apartment so they don't run off and get pregnant, in which case the maid is forcibly repatriated and the owner is fined.
More eye-opening reading here: http://twc2.org.sg/
One Straits Times (local Pravda) story I recall was about one of those old ladies who cleans up in hawker centres, earning on the order of S$100/month. This is way below a living wage, even in Singapore, and there's no state pension in Singapore either, so this was the sum total of her income. Because she couldn't afford an apartment, she slept (illegally) on the "void deck" (ground floor, exposed to elements) of an HDB housing block.
None of this was news, mind you -- the news was the fact that somebody stole her life savings of $50 from a cookie jar, and this is not permissible in squeaky-clean Singapore.
Many maids are also kept in modern-day slavery, working 365/24/7 and literally locked into the apartment so they don't run off and get pregnant, in which case the maid is forcibly repatriated and the owner is fined.
More eye-opening reading here: http://twc2.org.sg/