Social Engineering towards a happy ever after?

June 26th, 2005 elsewhere

As soon as the idea that love should be the central reason for marriage was first raised, observers of the day warned that the same values that increased people’s satisfaction with marriage as a relationship had an inherent tendency to undermine the stability of marriage as an institution…”

“No sooner did the ideal of marrying for love triumph than its most enthusiastic supporters started demanding the right to divorce if love died…”

“For thousands of years, marriage served so many economic, political, and social functions that the individual needs and wishes of family members (especially women and children) took second place. Marriage was not about bringing two individuals together for love and intimacy, although that was sometimes a welcome side effect. Rather, the aim of marriage was to acquire useful in-laws and gain political or economic advantage…”

The writer goes on to describe impediments that kept society from exploring relationships outside of marriages.

“The first impediment was the conviction that[...]women had no sexual desires…The second thing that held back the subversive potential of the love revolution was the ability of relatives, neighbors, employers, and government to regulate personal behavior and penalize nonconformity …[the] influence of those individuals and institutions…[however] was eroded by urbanization. The third factor was the combination of unreliable birth control and harsh penalties for illegitimacy. Then, in the 1960s, birth control became reliable enough that the fear of pregnancy no longer constrained women’s sexual conduct. And, in the 1970s, reformers abolished the legal category of illegitimacy, successfully arguing that it was unfair to penalize a child whose mother was unable or unwilling to wed. Women’s legal and economic dependence on men, and men’s domestic dependence on women, was the fourth factor that had long driven people to get and stay married. But during the 1970s and 1980s, women won legal autonomy and made huge strides toward economic self-sufficiency. At the same time, the proliferation of labor-saving consumer goods like permanent-press fabrics. [And as] those barriers to single living and personal autonomy gradually eroded, society’s ability to pressure people into marrying, or keep them in a marriage against their wishes, was drastically curtailed.”

–The New Fragility of Marriage, for Better or for Worse by way of Arts and Letters Daily.

In present times, marrying for economic reasons is less observed than marrying for love. Strictly speaking, if love completely replaces economic incentives for marrying, the need for marriage becomes unimportant since love can be obtained outside of marriage.

The writer described impediments to marriage while perhaps might be true elsewhere, looking at the stability in the number of registered marriages found here it seems that these impediments are not effective in Singapore. I am dwelling upon points two, three and four in particular.

Two: The ability of relations and government units to influence individuals into keeping in marriage generally depends on geographic proximity. In big countries such as America, Europe, India or China, as individuals move away from family units, one obtains social freedom since the persons who form most of your social circle is not there to make you conform. In Singapore however, the proximity of family gives rise to opportunities to pressures individuals to marry when there is no pressing reasons to do so – simply, it is the age to be married. The ability to choose one’s lifestyle is limited because society demands individual to conform with traditional lifestyles. High prices in purchasing property and the low incentives to rent (first it reduces the income, second it is yet acceptable for a child to move out before marriage) results in individuals being in close proximity with parents, sibilings and neighbours and these are the persons who would influence a person to marry.

Three: This is hear-say. Girlfriends have told me that doctors generally prefer not to prescribe birth control pills to singles but they would not have the same hesitation to prescribe these pills to couples. Condoms are widely available, however. So if you are pregnant you either get an abortion or get married because while the Singapore government is worried about falling rates of birth, single moms are still left out in the cold in terms of financial breaks. (Traditional family structures are still considered better than alternative structures as Waipang found from his analysis on local policies.) Second, not having your own place – caused by low freqency of house renting and purchase of property – results in less frequency of pre marital sex. The rise of budget hotels such as the Hotel 81 chain and the affordability of weekend getaways while may reverse the trend somewhat in terms of pre marital sex, it may not impact the number of marriages since individuals are bounded by economic incentives and conventions to marry.

Four: In earlier days, women are economically dependent on men and men are domestically dependent on women. Now that most women are legally economically independent and most men domestically independent (to an extent on maids and mothers) is there less incentive to get married and stay married? Perhaps, but this impact is mitigated by other considerations. First, government policies on taxation have made it such that there is greater perks in marrying than to remain single. Second, again, high property prices and the desirability of property ownership meant there is greater incentive to marry than to stay alone. Additionally, cultural expectations that women carry the burdern of domestic labour could be a disincentive in marrying but it is alleviated by the presence of affordable domestic help (for cleaning and care-giving), and hawker centers (for food).

If these impediments do not prevent marriages, then what causes the delay in timing of marriage and the rise of divorces since typically the delay of marriage and the rise of divorces signals the unattractiveness of marraige?

An old paper (1994) states economic (housing and financial considerations) reasons for the delay in marriage between couples. If the decision to marry is influenced by one’s social circle, then it follows that the delay is accepted by the social circle or caused by factors outside of one’s control. I’m thinking that the rise in educated women contributes to this delay. Previously girl-childs are an economic burden hence, there is a desire for the family to marry the girl-child at the soonest possible. Compulsary education for both sexes meant that girls have become a source of financial contribution for the family hence, there is less desire for the family to marry the girl child, resulting in the delay the timing of marriage. The rise in educated females however, results in reduction of the marriage market for this group since it is observed that men would marry down and women would not marry up. Assuming the same number of men and women of unequal education, a more educated man and a less educated woman would be more marketable. This results in the situation where a less educated man and more educated women becoming unmarketable in the local marriage market. For these singles to marry, they would have to seek out the global marriage market.

Here you would find the statistics on divorces and annulments. One reason for divorces is adultery. Supposing the availability of attractive alternatives remains somewhat constant over the years, number of persons who divorce due to adultery would remain constant. So it is unsurprising when I multiply out the numbers the change is only a small volume (109 in ‘93 vs 92 in ‘03). One reason provided for divorces is ‘unreasonable behaviour’ and ’separate living arrangements’. When I multiply it out, unreasonable behaviour is cited as reasons in 744 divorces in ‘93 vs 2040 cases in ‘05. Separate living arrangements is cited as reasons in 1603 divorces cases in ‘93 vs 1964 in ‘03.

While the impediments to be married is not effective in Singapore, it seems that staying married is the challenge. If one’s social circle, economic incentives and government policies play a role in having two persons marry, why not in making two persons stay married if traditional structures are more acceptable than alternative structures (eg step families)?

It’s my party

June 13th, 2005 Treats

I am experiencing some sort of identity crisis with Headspace. Headspace started off as a dumping ground for all and sundry but having a blog and the ability to pigeonhole topics leaves me to wonder if I should be keeping it strictly to three main groupings: entertainment (music, telly, theatre, music, books) because I’ve not seen a blog that talks exclusively about these things except perhaps Inkpot, some obsessions (only the orchids, pens stay) – again because no one else I have seen speaks on these things, and commentry (perhaps in time to come, I might limit myself to commenting on certain topics only but not yet). Some personal posts permitted (for instance birthday revealations) and obituaries as well to mark the passing of time.

What actually prompted the removal of personal posts – bevolution has a function called deprecated – was not merely embarresment (aiyo so whiny and insecure) although it forms a large component of the reason. At dinner, Z brought up old school gossip her husband found by googling a name of an ex lecturer and it suddenly struck me that the google on my name and reading 39 pages of my blog might not be a person looking for some other Eileen Chew and happened to get sucked into my blog. Having an internet presence automatically strips one of annoyamity since it is public and searchable. But what worries me about personal posts is that it might hurt persons I care about if they should read it.

Bang On A Can All Stars

June 11th, 2005 theatre

The band is deeply clever, very precise and the music plays with your head. Music becomes a visual experience in Tan Dun’s Concerto for Six in which the cellist gets so excited and passionate that he strokes the cello in the air. Lick had no melody for which one could hang on and recognise, unlike jazz where the performer moves from one melody to create variations and return to it at the end. The starting sounds like kids having fun in the band room by blaring/banging at the top of their lungs a C note but instead of giggles right after, it is silence. The beat is irregular and a series of these big notes sounds random and without purpose. Shadowbang and Dreaming in Air seems to me like the stuff spa places play to put customers to sleep. The last piece called Music in 5ths is written by Philip Glass. Each musician repeats only a few notes but repeats it endlessly. The repetition so much affected me – I was listening to it with my eyes closed – that I felt vertigo. Only later when the musicians moved away later to repeat a different phrase with more notes did the vertigo stop. Whew! Weird but quite worth the bucks.

Elswhere: sex trade in the lab?

June 8th, 2005 elsewhere

I love this article on incentives and animal behaviour

“But do the capuchins actually understand money? Or is Chen simply exploiting their endless appetites to make them perform neat tricks?

“Several facts suggest the former. During a recent capuchin experiment that used cucumbers as treats, a research assistant happened to slice the cucumber into discs instead of cubes, as was typical. One capuchin picked up a slice, started to eat it and then ran over to a researcher to see if he could ”buy” something sweeter with it. To the capuchin, a round slice of cucumber bore enough resemblance to Chen’s silver tokens to seem like another piece of currency.

“Once, a capuchin in the testing chamber picked up an entire tray of tokens, flung them into the main chamber and then scurried in after them — a combination jailbreak and bank heist — which led to a chaotic scene in which the human researchers had to rush into the main chamber and offer food bribes for the tokens, a reinforcement that in effect encouraged more stealing.

“Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys’ true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)”

I would say that by teaching these chimps the use of money as a means for which their appetites can be fufilled, they would naturally use it to achieve utility maximisation. Observing that they select outcomes similar to the way a human would may not mean they understand money but that these creatures understand the rules of the engagement enough to select the best outcome. It is teaching behaviour to the monkeys and I would say the monkeys learnt well. In natural state, would we observe a trade, for instance, a strawberry for a romp in the hay? I doubt. In a natural state a monkey does not depend on other monkeys for providing basic materials for living. A man needs another man to provide him materials for living, and hence, the birth of trade and subsequently money as a means of exchange. I suspect it is only after the birth of trade that prostitution began. A monkey seeks to live its life. But unlike a man, a grown monkey could live its life without needing to depend on another monkey for warmth, shelter or food. Not needing to trade, it could never understand money the way men understood money.

Lower-income employees higher wage increases – does it work?

June 7th, 2005 Uncategorized

Wang Zhen blogs on NWC’s recommendation.

“‘It is for the own good of the employers,’ he said, commenting on the National Wages Council’s (NWC) recommendation that firms planning to raise wages should give lower-income employees higher increases.” He being our Minister of Labour.

The point, according to ST is that, having a pool of workers unable to cope with living costs could lead to social tensions, which would hamper business operations.

By raising the wages of lower income employees will it resolve the problem of workings unable to cope with living costs assuming that this results in social tensions?

I commented on Wang Zhen’s blog that it does not make economic sense to do so if all firms obediently raise the wages of their lower income employees. Simplistically, when raising the incomes, the disposable income of this 20% group of our productive society will increase. With the increase of permanant income, the workers go out to spend money on goods and services. Demand increases, and when supply is unable to match demand over the short term, this results in a short term price hike. In the meantime, I said, the firms wise up: they include the increased cost of labour into the prices of goods and services, which creates a sustained price increase. Back to square-one: these same workers whose cost of living we are suppose to reduce by the taken actions is not helped at all.

That is, if all firms swallow the ‘all-for-your-own-good’ line.

Assuming that these firms are headed by self serving owners whose main aim is to fatten their own pockets. If measures recommended by NWC fattens their pockets directly or indirectly, without a doubt they would be in a fantastic hurry to implement. For example, wage freeze or wage cuts recommend 2001-02 were taken up and we see that “real wage growth declined significantly[...] from[...] 1.3% in 2001 [to] 1.1% in 2002″ ( Found here.) The move to increase wages of someone else fattens the pockets of others at one’s own expense. It is hard to think that these self serving owners or managers would voluntarily agree to improve the lot of their workers to reduce social tensions. Hearing that the government and ministers are looking out for these lower income employees is much like an grandpa waving a bamboo fan at a horde of screaming, running under-fives to keep down the noise.

The point I am more interested in is if can anything be done at all. I am wondering if increasing the size of indirect taxes and returning to these lower income employees in the form of rebates lesser than the indirect taxes paid (so it would not seem like they get it much more better off and everyone decides to take lower paid jobs) would be a good idea. The obvious indirect tax would be GST. There are implications I haven’t thought about. Off the top of my head: where would get other tax revenue to fill the loss from the rebates, would it cause a higher overall inflation (definitely), administration costs would be great since salary goes up and down, additionally, this rebate if given out as cash at the start of next fiscal year does nothing to alleviate the monthly strain?