Social Status and Bureaucratic Contacts and the Public Housing Tenants in Singapore 9789814380133

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The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

~tablished as an autonomous corporation by an Act of the Parliament of the Republic of Singapore in May, 1968, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies is a regional research centre for scholars and other specialists concerned with modern Southeast Asia. The Institute's research interest is focussed on the many-faceted problems of modernization and social change in Southeast Asia.

The In titute is governed by a 24-meniber Board of Trustees on which are represented the University of Singapore and Nanyang University, appointees from the Government, as well as representatives from a broad range of professional and civic organizations and groups. A ten-man Executive Committee oversees day-to-day oper tions; it is ex officio chaired by the Director, the Institute's chief academic and administrative officer.

"Copyright subsists in this publication under the United Kingdom Copyright Act, 1911 and the Singapore Copyright Act (Cap. 187). No person shall reproduce a copy of this publication, or ex~ tracts tber~from, without the written permission of the In~t1tute of Southeast Asian St1Jdies, Singapore.''

SOCI!:.L ST.L.TUS 1".1-TD BURE.'..UCRLTIC CONTLCTS ..::.MONG THE PUBLIC HOUSING TENLNTS IN SINGJ...PORE

Riaz Hassan

Occasional Pap er No. 10 Institute of Southe ast Asian Studies Singapore Price:

$2 .00

P RE F ACE In line with its primary interest in the many-faceted problems of modernization and social change in Southeast Asia, the Institute sponsored an international conference on "Modernization in Southeast Asia" on January 16 - 21, 1971. While the primary focus of the meeting was on theoretical problems, several papers were devoted to describing or analysing aspects of modernization. Among the latter category of papers, the one by Dr. Riaz Hassan drew widespread attention and discussion. Dr. Hassan's research related to two aspects of modernization which scholars, only recentl~, have begun to give attention:1. 2.

the problem of popular response to change; and the interaction of bureaucracy and the public in a changing social environment.

From data based on tenant reaction to services performed for it by members of the bureaucracy, Dr. Hassan moved the usual discussion away from what constitutes modernization to a consideration of the impact of this kind of change on the peoples involved. While his study is limited both in time and scope, it is valuable both for its focus and analysis. The paper is a revised version at the conference. In this version, responded to the criticism raised at meeting and has carried his analysis did in the original version.

of the one presented Dr. Hassan has the international further than he

The Institute is happy to make this paper available to a larger audience. The facts, interpretations and method of presentat~on are those of the author alone and the Institute is not responsible nor should it be considered as advocating the ideas of interpretations of this paper. Dr. Riaz Hassan is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Singapore. This is one of several papers he has written and published mn social problems in Singapore The author wishes to thank Professor Hans-Dieter Evers and Dr. Geoffrey Benjamin for their helpful comments. Josef Silverstein Director March 1, 1972

I

In the last one hundred and fifty years Singapore has been transformed from a small village to one of the most densely settled urbanized countries in the world. One of the consequence s of this process of •modernizat ion' is that it h~s compounded housing problems. It resulted in creating conditions of extreme overcrowding in housing as well as a large squatter population (You, 1955; Yeh und Lee, 1968; Ching, 1970; Hassan, 1969). Consequentl y many areas of Singapore and particularly the "centrr.'..l City" areas, where most of the immigrants tended to settle for a variety of reasons, acquired characteris tics of "slum-like" areas. This has been demonstrated by several social surveys. (Department of Social ~elfare, 1947; Goh, 1956; Kaye, 1960). The overcrowded and sl~like housing conditions resulting from rapid urbanization forced the government to intervene in order to alleviate these conditions by providing low cost public housing for the lower income strata of the population. Although the first official attempt to provide low cost housing dates back to 1927 when the Singapore Improvement Trust was formed to alleviate the housing shortage, the comprehensiv e public housing programme began after the establishme nt of the Housing and Development Board in 1960 by the present government. Soon after its establishme nt the Housing and Development Board (H.D.B.) formulated five-year plans to carry out its programmes. In the first five-year plan which commenced in 1960, the Board set itself the target of building 50,000 housing units at the rate of 10,000 units a year. This target was exceeded and by 1965 the Board has completed over 54,000 housing units. In the second five-ye ,:.t r plan, which commenced in 1966, the Board has succeeded in building 12,000 housing units a year. Under the third five-ye nr building programme, additional 100,000 units of public housing would be built from 1971 to 1975. At present, the H.D.B. has over 120,000 housing units under its management housing over 600,000 people. According to the present plans by the end of this decade a majority of the population of Singapore will be residing in H.D.B. flats. The impressive achievement s of the Housing and Development Board are wellknown nationally and internation ally and have been already documented (Yeh and Lee 19E8; Teh, 1969; H.D.B. Annual Reports), and therefore need no further elaboration here.

2

It should, however, be mentioned that large scale public housing programme is one of the major aspects of the modernization of Singapore.

II The main focus of this paper is not the development of Public Housing but the manaGement of Public Housing particularly the bureaucratic structure within the Public Housing Bureaucracy which directly deals with the management and maintenance of the public flats after these have been occupied by their tenants. In short, the main focus of this paper is relationship between the public housing tenants and public housing bureaucracy. Before proceeding further perhaps it would be appropriate to state briefly the general theoretical orientation of this paper. Students of bureaucracy from Weber onward have assumed that bureaucracy is positively associated with the continued development of an advanced industrial-urban social order. Sociological studies, both theoretical and empiric~l, over the past few decades have greatly enriched our understanding of bureaucratic organizations, bureaucratic processes, and their sociological and psychological correlates and the role of bureaucracy in development and modernization (Weber, 1947; Blau, 1955; Gouldner, 1954; Merton, 1957; Whyte, 1956; Mills, 1951; Eisenstadt, 1959; Etzioni, 1961; Blau and Scott, 1962; Udy, 1959; Presthus, 1959). Th6re is little doubt that modern bureaucracies with their heavy emphasis on rationality and efficiency are the most efficient means for organizing and administering complex modern urban-industrial societies. However, little attention has been paid to the impa ct of modern bure aucracy on social struct ures such as the stratification system. Only recently this question h ns been investigated in theoretic al and empirical studies (Sjob er g , Brymer and Farris, 1966; Levin and Taube, 1969; Hunt, Gurrslin and Roach, 1958; Rein 1965). These studies suggest that bureaucratic structures encounter major difficulties in coping with the problems of lower socia l-status groups. Their findings also point out the critical role of bur eaucratic organizations in sustaining social stratification. The evidence suggests that in order to maintain itself

3 client-centered bureaucracy often finds it advantageous to avoid lower-class clients who e~e likely to handicap the organization in attaining its goals which are necessary to demonstrate success. This happens mainly due to the fact that lower-class clients for bureaucratic services tend to challenge organizational effectiveness as measured by quantitative criteria by presenting problems which are either too numerous or which cannot be easily resolved. A disproportionately large amount of time and effort has to be devoted to the problems presented by the lower class although even then success cannot be predicted with confidence. Since efficiency and rationality of bureaucratic structure are predicated upon an explicit statement of the organizational goals this prompts bureaucratic structure to select for processing those whom it perceives as most amenable to the fulfillment of formally defined objectives and to exclude those lower class clients whose needs represent the greatest threat. Within this genera l theoretical framework, this paper will examine the relationship between the public housing bureaucracy in Singapore and public housing tenants (clients) of differing social status. It especially examines the responsiveness of a public housing bureaucratic stru,(ltu:T:e to lower-status tenants.

The data used in this study have been obtained from the Houeing and Development Board Sample Household Survey, 1968, with the kind permission of Dr. Stephen Yeh. This sU1·vey was jointly carried out by the Btatistics and Research Department, Housing and Development Board and the Economic Research Centre, University of Singapore, under the direction of Dr. Yeh. The purpose of the Survey was to find out the socio-economic characteristics of H.D.B. flat tenants and the degree of their satisfaction with respect to a number of physical, social and economic conditions. Data were also collected pertaining to the physical and social conditions of these people before they moved into the H.D.B. flats. The respondents were also asked to compare present living conditions and conditions prior to their moving into H.D.B. flats. The Survey was based on a 10 per cent random sample, comprising a total of 7391 housing units. The sample was drawn from the Universe which consisted of "all those H.D.B. housing units which are either rented or available for immediate renting at the date of sampling".

4

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In this Survey the respondents were asked about the of their contacts with the Housing Inspector (the full designation is Housing Maintenance Inspector, or H.M.t.) and the degree of their satisfaction with the service~ of Housing Inspectors. The Housing Inspeotor is an officer in the Estate Office (of the H.D.B. in various Housing Estates) and his duties include among others the following: (1) Tenancy Control· (2) Environmental · fiYgiene, (3) Maintenance, and {4) Liaison between H.D.B. and the flat resident associations where such associations exist. One Housing Lnspector is responsible for between 1,000 to 1,500 housing units. Thus by virtue of the nnture of his duties the Housing Inspector is one of the bureaucratic functionaries of the H.D.B. with whom the tenants are likely to come in contact very frequently. The responses to questions pertaining to the frequency of contact with Housing Inspector and the degree of satisfaction with their services are used here as indicators of bureaucratic responsiveness. freqtt~y

The responses of the respondents in the Gurvey were tabulated by the type of flat. There are four t~)es of flats or housing units, namely, one-Room flats, two-Room flats, three-Room flats and 4/5-Room flats. An examination of the socio-economic characteristics of dwellers in these four types of flats revealed that they are significantly different from each other with respect to a number of socio-economic variables which are gener:?lly taken as indicators of social status. For example the average household (earned) income for one-room flat households is :aao, for two rooms flat households it is ~294 for three rooms flct households it is ~447 and for four/five-room flat households it is $667. (The average monthly income for all H.D.B. units is $318). Similarly differences are also found with respect to other socio-economic variables such as avers.ge number of persons per room, ownershi:9 of household appliances, school attendance rate of children, average number of income earners per household and pceupation of the head of household, among the occupants of tne !our types of flats. Household residing in oneroom flats are low on all of these socio-economic variables and four/five-room flat households have the high~st scores. These differences are so marked that type of flat occu}?ancy can be used 3S a measure of the social status of households residing in the H.D.B. flats. Using this criterion, households residing in the one-room flats constitute the lowest social status group and the households residing in four/five-

5 room flats Households constitute ranking is

constitute the highest social status group. occupying two-room and three-room flats two intermediate social status groups. This given below: Social Status I (Highest) II III IV (Lowest)

TZ!2es of Households 4/5 Room Room 3 Room 2 Room 1

III As mentioned earlier the respondents were asked about

the frequency of their contacts with the Housing Inspector and their degree of satisfaction with the services of the Housing Inspector. One of the questions asked in the Survey was, "When was the last time that you contacted your housing inspector or area office regarding tenancy, maintenance or other problems?". The responses of the four groups are given in Table I.

-

6

-

TABLE I Distribution of Households by Different Number of Rooms And By Contact with Housing Inspector over Different Time Periods I

I NUMBER Contact Houwith I! 1 Room sing In(Soc: spector or Area Office Status IV Lowi est)

OF ROOMS (T,ypes of Household)

2 Rooms

(Soc: Status I Highest)

(Soc: Status II}

(Soc: Status III)

-- -

Within past week

30 (1.2%)

43 (1.9%)

\7ithin past month

69

-·

-129

(2.go~)

4/5 Rooms

3 Rooms

53 (2.1%)

-

(5.8%)

176 (7.0%)

·--

7 (3.4%) ·-

14 (6.8%) ~-

Within past three IrXJifus

222 (8.9%)

32 (15.5%)

205 (8. 2~b)

30 (14.5%)

86 (3.9%)

132 (5 .• 3%)

13 (6.3%)

353 (14.6%)

472 (21.2%)

680 (27.2%)

61 (29.5%)

1750 (72.6%)

1195 (53.?%)

1030 (41.2%)

50 (24.2%)

72 (3.0%)

150 (6.?%)

Within past six months

70 . (2.9%)

150 (6.7%)

Within past 12 months

67 (2.8%)

More than 12 months ago N'.w""VER

I

I ;

Chi sq = 237.49

d.f. = 18:

Source: Housin7 and Development Board Sample Household

Survey_ 1968.

7 The data presented in table I show that 72.6 per cent of the lowest social status group (one-room flat dwellers) have never come in contact with the Housing Inspector, compared with 53.7 per cent of 2-Room flat dwellers, 41.2 per cent of the 3-Room flat dwellers and only 24.2 per cent of the 4/5 Rooms flat dwellers. In other words the great majority of the lowest social status group, i.e. the poorest grou~,residing in public flats never comes in contsct with the Housing Inspector. In other cate s orics the differences between various groups consistently follow a pattern which indicate that the lowest social status group h s.ve less frequent contact with the Housing Inspector than the other groups. The Chi square test of significance shows that the difference in distribution is statistically very significant. The evidence presented in t able I clearly indicates the differential response of service bureaucracy to its client population~ The one-room flat dwellers nev er come into contact with the Housing Inspector not because they do not have any problems that warrant cont ..J..ct with the Housing Inspector, but because either they are not aware of the bureaucratic services availabl e or, when they are aware of these services, they do not have easy access to thorn.

IV

In another question the respondents were asked "In general, are you satisfied with the service of your Inspector and area office regarding maintenance, repairs and your other complaints?" The distribution of responses for each group is given in table 2.

8

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Tfl.BLE 2

Distribut ion of Household s By Number of Rooms And Satisfact ion With Services of Inspector s and Area Office e s of Household ) NUMBER OF ROOMS (Typ "-

Satisfact ion with Services of Inspector s and Area Office

2 Rooms

l Room (Soc: Status IV Lowest)

( Soc: Status III)

Have Not Required Their Services

1748 (73.2%)

(5L~. 5%)

·1Jsually S8.tisfied

321 (13.4%)

3 Rooms

Rooms 4/5 ( ,-,

(Soc: Status II)

:J OC:

Status I Highest)

1019 (41.3%)

50 (24.4%)

561 (25.6%)

774 (31.4%)

84 (41.0%)

(5~ 2';6)

125

178 (8.0%)

314 (12.7%)

45 (22.0%)

Usually unsatisfi ed

193 (8.1%)

257 (11. ?;6)

Total

2387 (100.0%)

2190 (100.0%)

Some what satisfied

l

i

1194

-

-

I

!

Chi sq. = 211, Source:

Same as Table I.

-

360 (14.6%)

26 (12.7%)

2467 (100.0%)

205 (100.0%)

'

d.f. = 9,

l

P< .01

9 The data in t Gble 2 substunti ~ t e the findin g report ed earli er that a gre 2.t ma jor ity of the loc-mst socL:l st atus group (one-room fl 2.t dwellers) never come in cont ;: ;. ct vli th the Housing Inspector or the area office. As is shown in t ~ble 2 above 73.2 per cent of one Room flat dwellers said t~at they never required the services of Housing Insp ector or the area office compared to 54.5 per cent of 2 Rooms flat dwellers, 41.3 per cent of 3 Rooms flat dwellers and In the ~nly 24.4 per cent of 4/5 Rooms flat dwellers. categories "usually satisfied" and "somewhat satisfied" the percentages of households increase with higher social status. An interesting finding is that in the c ategory "usually unsatisfied" the percentages of households ,also i ncreases with higher social status. (Except that there is a slight decline in the L~/5-Room flat dwellers compared to 3-Room flat dwellers). Obviously the members of lower social status group tend to be more satisfied with whatever services they receive whereas the higher st utus groups tend to be more discriminating and demanding. This could also be the function of the fact that compared with one-Room flat dwellers, 2-, 3- and 4/5-Rooms flat dwellers use the services of the Inspectors and the area office more frequently. These data also support my earlier contention that the lower social status groups tend to be left out more frequently than the higher status groups from the bureaucratic services provided by the H.D.B. bureaucracy. However, the data presented in table 2 as well as its significance can be misleading because it does not separate the users of bureaucratic services from the non-users. Obviously in order to be satisfied or dissatisfied with the services of Housing Inspectors one has to use their services. In order to assess the degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the services rendered by Housing Inspectors and Area Office among those who have used their servic es, the data pertaining to the users was analyzed separately.

10 Distribution of Households using the Services of Housing Inspectors and Area Office by Number of Rooms and Satisfaction with Services of Housing Inspectors and Area Office ·-,-·- -·

Level of Satisfaction

2 Rooms

3 Rooms

4/5 Rooms

321 (50.2%)

561 (56.3%)

774 (53-5%)

84 (54 .1%)

Somewhat satisfied

125 (19.6%)

174 (17.9%)

314 (21.7%)

45 (29.0%)

Usually unsatisfied

193 (30.2%)

257 (25.8%)

360 (24.8%)

26 (16.7%)

1 Room .

Usually s a tisfied

- ----------·

--

I

1

Total

!

996 (100.0%)

639 (100.0%)

1448 (100.0%)

I ; I

155 (100.0%)

'

Chi sq = 13.2076

d.f. = 6

p