In the inaugural Global Social Mobility Report 2020 published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Singapore has been ranked 20th globally, the highest performance among Southeast Asian countries.
The island state scored 74.6 on the overall index, and ranks within the top 10 globally on the Education Access (83.7) and Education Quality and Equity (85.8) pillars.
The report noted that improvement could be made by expanding the social diversity within schools.
Singapore’s labour market has a low unemployment rate for workers with basic/intermediate and advanced education. This translates into a score of 81.8 on the Work Opportunities pillar.
However, there is room for significant improvement on the Fair Wages pillar, in which Singapore score 45.1. The income share of the bottom 50 per cent of the population only represents 25.7 per cent of the labour share of the top 50 per cednt of the population.
Overall, the countries that provide their populations with the most equally shared opportunities are mostly Nordic, as described by the concepts included in index.
The Global Social Mobility Report 2020 assesses the current state of the paths to social mobility around the world.
Traditionally, social mobility is measured across generations, thus only capturing the effect of measures taken decades ago. The Global Social Mobility Index focuses on those policies, practices and institutions that collectively determine the extent to which everyone in society has a fair chance to fulfill their potential, regardless of their socio-economic background, the origin of their parents, or the place where they were born.