Home is where the Singaporean heart is, this year
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 10 Jan 09;
THE recession has wrought dramatic changes in the Singapore dream — it has shifted closer to home and hearth, with luxuries like travel and buying a car playing second fiddle in the year ahead.
The top priorities are now children, starting a family, and buying or upgrading one’s home, according to OCBC Bank’s survey released on Friday. Singaporeans’ top aspiration last year of “seeing the world” is now just a mid-priority.
Four in 10 respondents intend to cut spending this year, due to worries of losing their job. This weighed most heavily on the minds of singles and those with young children — half listed job loss as their top concern. These same groups were the most pessimistic, with one in two thinking their goals would now take longer to achieve. Only one in three of the other groups surveyed — those without children, and those with older children — felt that way.
The mature Singaporeans, those with older children, were the most carefree, with two in three saying they did not have any concerns at all. For over half of them, the dream was to achieve financial freedom and retire comfortably.
Singaporeans look set to be less generous this year, however — while charity and volunteering ranked seventh on their list of goals last year, it did not even feature in the top ten this year. Sociologist Paulin Straughan sees this as a pragmatic reaction. “When you don’t have excess, you’ll look within your own needs, though this becomes a concern for charities and voluntary welfare organisations,” she said, noting that OCBC’s survey of 400 Singaporeans aged 18 to 64 was not representative of society-at-large.
On 2009’s priorities, Associate Professor Straughan said: “When dreams tied to material gains are threatened, we start to see how vulnerable they are and retreat to the kind of support we know we can count on. Family will always be there for you.”
The survey was conducted last October and November, and OCBC’s head of global wealth management Nicholas Tan said the bank would use the findings to refine its products and services.
