ESSAY HW

4.“This is home, truly”, is this the sentiment of young people in Singapore?

It has always been an issue in Singapore that the younger generations, which consist of young working adults and fresh graduates, have forsaken their roots to find a new place where they can call home. Home, to most people would be a place where one can feel safe, be financially stable and to have a sense of belonging. Hence, with Singapore developing her economy, bringing about more job opportunities and reducing society problems, would the young people change their sentiments and regard Singapore as their home?

Singapore has proven herself to be a rather safe and uncorrupted place to live in. People feel secure and safe, as there are harsh laws implemented to punish those who have done wrong heavily. For example, in a case of drug trafficking Singapore uses capital punishment. This serves as a warning to others, preventing them from carrying out the illegal practices. Furthermore, the Singapore government places great emphasis on defensive system. Making national service compulsory for boys, and building a strong system of defense by investing on new technology, makes Singapore less susceptible to attacks.

Next, most Singaporeans also enjoy financial stability which was accompanied with the growth in Singapore’s economy through the years. The stable income that they receive, allow them to cope with the high cost of living in Singapore. Hence to some of the young people, Singapore does indeed satisfy the criteria of a “home”.

However, some young people in Singapore may not feel that Singapore is a place where they are willing to call home.

In Singapore, our government adopts a meritocratic system in our education system. Through this system, students face higher stress levels as they have to compete with many others in order to achieve what they want. For example, students with better results or more achievements, are more easily accepted into universities, or are given priority in choosing the subject combination that they want to do. Thus, some of the young people usually feel that the education system in Singapore is too stressful, and will choose a less competitive path of education by studying in foreign colleges with lower competition or a slower pace of living. Furthermore, as our government constantly increases and encourages the inflow of foreign students, this adds on to the competition in schools. Thus, this added stress to the students, only leads on to more people leaving Singapore, to a less stressful country.

Next, in Singapore there is usually high competition in the country for white collar jobs. This is usually so because, the people here are mostly educated degree holders, and the cost of living in Singapore is rather high. Thus most will aim for the higher paying white collared jobs. The high competition for white collared jobs in Singapore usually causes young working adults to be unable to get employed in their area of professionalism. Thus, this leads to young people going overseas to look for job opportunities. Also, the further addition of foreign talents into our workforce, and companies outsourcing, leads to the decrease in job opportunities in Singapore. With the addition of foreign workers in our workforce, companies will avoid hiring locals due to their demand for higher wages. They will instead hire the foreign workers who may be satisfied with a payment which is lower than the market rate. Hence, due to the high competition for jobs in Singapore, young people are moving to other countries with better job opportunities.

Lastly, young people may choose to live in other countries due to the increasing influence of the foreign country’s culture. Young people are easily affected by western cultures due to the rise of mass media and the Internet. The Internet can be easily accessed and information around the world can be easily acquired. As young people are usually the main users of the Internet, they are most easily influenced and most likely to migrate. Furthermore, with globalisation there is an increase in availability of goods from foreign countries. These foreign labels carry the country’s culture, and thus when consumed by locals they gain knowledge of the country and it changes their spending and eating habits.

In conclusion, I believe that “this is home, truly” is not the sentiment of the young people in Singapore. Due to the competitiveness and the high stress level in Singapore, many would choose to leave the country, to another place where there is less stress and better job opportunities.