Lower-income folk worst hit by S’pore’s Covid-19 circuit breaker: Study

The circuit breaker imposed last year to interrupt the transmission of Covid-19 had an uneven effect on families, with those earning less than $3,000 a month hit hardest by the economic shutdown. A number of them had difficulty paying for daily expenses. On the other hand, the social consequences of the lockdown were widely felt and had a potentially lasting impact on the well-being of all segments of society here, said researchers, in papers published by the RSIS.

The six authors of the papers, which were published from Aug 10 to 13, polled more than 1,000 citizens and permanent residents every two weeks between May 7 and July 16 last year, for a total of more than 6,000 respondents. It is the first time an extensive study specific to the circuit breaker has been conducted.

The authors include Dr Patrick Daly, a senior research fellow at the Earth Observatory of Singapore at NTU; Prof Benjamin Horton, the director of the observatory; and Dr Laavanya Kathiravelu, an assistant professor at NTU’s Division of Sociology. The other authors are Dr Reuben Ng and Dr Caroline Brassard from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS, and Dr Jamie McCaughey from ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Read the article here.

Photo: ST