Welfare reform and its limits in Singapore

In recent years, the Singapore state—which continually insists, “we are not a welfare state”—has stepped up on its efforts to deal with issues of healthcare, education, support for care, retirement and even unemployment. Much of this has been in response to demographic changes as well as political pressures. The paper evaluates the possibilities and limits of recent reforms. It looks to the promising aspects reform—growing recognition of the importance of child and elderly care services outside the home, for example—before turning to examine the limitations. I argue that many of the limitations stems from the state’s continual commitment to the notion of the “family as first line of defense” and state support as last-resort solutions for those without families. The paper will show that this framework sets important limits not only to the type of changes made to welfare policies, but also has consequences for reinforcing inequalities, and for shaping conceptualizations of citizenship in Singapore society.