Reproduction, discipline, inequality: Critiquing East-Asian developmentalism through a strategic-relational examination of Singapore's Central Provident Fund. (December 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Greener, Joe; Yeo, Eve
• Is Part Of: Global social policy. Volume 22:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 483
• Page End: 502
• Publication Date: 2022-12
• Subjects: Central Provident Fund -- class -- developmentalism -- East Asian social policy -- gender -- Strategic Relational Approach; Social policy -- Periodicals; 361
• DOI: 10.1177/14680181211059971
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1468-0181

Abstract

The five 'developmentalist' welfare states of East Asia (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan) have been presented as successful projects of economic progress, positively aligning citizen-interests with business objective. Utilising Jessop's Strategic-Relational Approach (SRA), we analyse the Central Provident Fund (CPF), Singapore's 'forced savings' social policy which organises housing, healthcare, education and retirement. Through a myriad of eligibilities/ineligibilities, Singapore's CPF administers desired social behaviours while sustaining a series of inequalities supporting certain classed and gendered interests over others. Our analysis breaks down the CPF into three social relational orientations: (1) heteronormative familial responsiblisation, (2) labour market activation and (3) class reproduction. The article highlights the function of CPF in institutionalising conservative and pro-market political interests. CPF reproduces material inequalities and fashions behaviours conducive with the dominant accumulation strategy while discouraging those which are not, privileging some interests over others.