highest mobile penetration rates in the world, and a high rate of over 90 "It is not surprising that people now feel it is harder to move ahead from where they are now – which is not poverty, as in the past,” he said. long way to develop a rich labor force that in turn yields maximum "Now if my children fall sick also Asked to put their finger on why there is a sense of general malaise about the future, scholars such as Irene Ng from the National University of Singapore (NUS) said this was the inevitable result of a maturing economy.Ng, an associate professor of social work, said: "The era of miracle growth is over, and the widespread universal policies of mass housing and mass education in the past have given way to greater stratification, even in these public goods of housing and education.”From independence in 1965 to 1973, the average annual growth of real gross domestic product was 12.7 per cent. Deciding Which Players Brighton Should Keep & Offload This SummerWe Find the Best Muscle Cars for $10,000: Window Shop with Car and DriverWill China be ‘triumphant’ in 2050? "We could mobility-test every national policy, to link outcomes of policies to their effects on mobility,” she said.Nanyang Technological University sociologist Teo You Yenn said workplace practices, housing policies and health-care infrastructure had to shift so that people were properly rewarded for their contributions, whatever their relative socio-economic status.For Tan, a shift in the national psyche is also necessary – away from the Singapore Dream of upward mobility. Even when growth slowed from 1973 to 1979, it still averaged 8.7 per cent. "Growing up, my parents kept telling us that by the time it hit my generation it would be impossible to experience the kind of wealth growth they had,” said Tan, 43, who is a life coach pursuing her second postgraduate degree.NUS sociologist Tan Ern Ser said that in the 1970s and 1980s, many people lifted themselves into the middle class but these days degrees carried less of a premium and the economy faced digital disruption, turbulence and uncertainties. contributing approximately 20 to 25 percent of its annual GDP. It is also phasing out the streaming system in schools, bumping up financial help for the poor, and keeping a lid on public housing prices.The Ministry of Social and Family Development said last year that Singapore had done better than most countries at social mobility. You ask me to look at just the next two years, and I also don’t know how to survive,” he said. "Because those who succeed try to help their children, and those who haven’t succeeded find that the odds increase against them doing well in life,” he said.Likening social mobility to an escalator, Tharman said: "Once that escalator stops, that escalator that carries everyone up stops, the problems of inequality and all the problems of me against you, this group against that group, become much sharper.”Since May last year, the government has made addressing inequality a priority.