Equality in a country might still be difficult to attain, despite careful planning and execution of comprehensive policies. Taking Singapore as an example, mandatory education is a highly relevant policy which may aid in achieving social equality; such fair education opportunities create a homogeneous and knowledgeable pool of talents. However, as globalization and advancing technologies continue to push the speed of progress and development, it becomes more challenging to produce enough qualified talents to cater to the expanding economy. To relieve the situation of an insufficient workforce, many countries like Singapore, introduce foreign employees to help steer their economy. Although this may enhance economic progress, the social competition it presents might deprive locals of employment opportunities. Unattended, domestic growth may proceed at the expense of individuals who are unable to catch up, hence tipping the balance of social and economic distribution. Therefore, a balance between achieving national growth and ensuring social equality is usually difficult to attain.
Even with these challenges, an egalitarian society is still attainable if the appropriate development schemes are executed. Inequality is often experienced when wealth distribution within a country is uneven; this could be due to high unemployment rates or more fundamentally, insufficient access to opportunities for development. To avoid such situations, policies could be designed to nurture more local talents by providing quality education and technical experiences to improve employability and not just by expanding a talent pool quantitatively. By boosting the competency of local individuals, employment rates would increase and social inequality within a country can be largely minimized. Therefore, a focus on internal progression would ensure accessibility to employment opportunities to a wider local audience so that balanced social distribution could be attained.
Besides the application of policies, social and income gaps can be mitigated by implementing a strong education plan. Emphasis on education can diminish inequality by equipping people with knowledge so that they have better, and equal, standing in industry. With globalization driving the expansion of the technological sector, it is easy for a society to fall behind without the resources of a knowledgeable workforce. Only a nation strongly equipped with a literate and skillful workforce would be able to drive a relevant economy with emphasis on technological advancements. Hence, policies could be formulated to introduce novel industrial technology during the course of education and provide specialist training for prospective employees. This is exemplified in the Japanese education system which incorporates ‘school-to-work transition’ (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010).With this, more citizens would be readily equipped to participate in the economy and demands of the future could be better anticipated. This in turn may increases the productivity and efficiency of the economic sector, which would contribute to financial growth of the nation and enables the government to distribute funds to help the needy who are struggling financially in the society. In this way, the repercussions of inequality and widening social gaps can be minimised by strong emphasis on education.
A well-educated workforce also enhances self-sustainability as it reduces a nation’s dependency on foreign employees to drive the economy. With this independence, more opportunities are created for the locals in the areas of education and work, which increases employment rate of the locals. This may also reduce conflicts frequently faced by a heterogenous labour force, as shown by Garnero and Rycx (2013) that labour diversity in a working environment can negatively affect work productivity due to disputes in communication and increasing competition. Therefore, instead of focusing on increasing the diversity of human capita in a country, policies could seek to enforce employment stability for the locals so that more individuals can contribute to the economy and the number of idle citizens would be reduced. By motivating citizens with the assurance of education and employment opportunities, a country may build a highly self-dependent society which is also crucial in achieving a well distributed society in terms of social standing and wealth.
To sum up, globalization would inevitably aggravate uneven distribution in society due to the dynamics and rapid progress it entails. Despite these difficulties, it may still be possible to reduce the extent of such disparities by collaborating political policies with academic structures.
Citations:
1. Stiglitz,
J.E. (2013). Singapore’s lesson for an
unequal America. Retrieved from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/singapores-lessons-for-an-
unequal- america/
2. Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2010). Japan: A Story of Sustained Excellence. Retrieved from: http://www.oecd.org/japan/46581091.pdf
3. Garnero,
A., & Rycx, F. (2013). The Heterogenous Effects of Workforce Diversity on Productivity, Wages and Profits. Institute
for the Study of Labour Discussion Paper, 7350, 1-37.
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