ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the trend in income inequality in Singapore and the effectiveness of a number of government policies in that respect. It evaluates the Singapore government's attempt at the provision of educational opportunities and its effect on income inequality. There are three regular sources available for the income data of Singapore: the report on the quinquennial Household Expenditure Survey (HES); the report on the annual Labour Force Survey (LFS); and the annual report of the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). Decomposition of the inequality index by subgroups of population is widely used to enumerate the respective inequality components. Singapore's Human Development Index (HDI) value has been very high. Since 2000 Singapore's HDI value increased at an average annual growth rate of 0.7 per cent.
