The family is framed as central in contemporary Singapore. Both discursively and practically, membership in a narrowly defined family has significant consequence for both symbolic worth and access to public goods. In this chapter, I examine the conditions necessary for performing middle-class ideals of family and the ways in which families with low-income do not have them. The case of Singapore demonstrates the pitfalls of assuming universality in the familial form. In particular, it challenges the fairness of welfare policies that embed within them narrow notions of familial forms and relations.

New Chinese immigration to Singapore is a contemporary phenomenon emerging after Singapore and China normalized diplomatic relations in 1990. Unlike their earlier coethnics migrating to Singapore, the newcomers from Mainland China, often called xinyimin in Mandarin, are predominately young with a balanced sex ratio. One of the most urgent resettlement issues that concerns young Chinese immigrant parents is their children’s education. In this chapter, we offer a descriptive analysis of family formation and parenting practices with a focus on examining how young xinyimin parents cope with resettlement challenges and navigate Singapore’s competitive education system to ensure their children’s academic success. Based on data collected from face-to-face interviews and participant observations, we find that, while xinyimin share similar cultural values and views on education and hold similar expectations of children’s educational achievement to Chinese Singaporean parents, they are more anxious about outcomes and future career prospects and thus more likely to adopt intense parenting strategies and practices than their Singaporean counterparts. We also find that, while Chinese way of parenting is severely contested in the processes of migration and adaptation, the success in promoting children’s educational excellence involves not only the right set of culturally specific strategies but also tangible support from familial or ethnic social networks and host-society institutions. We conclude by discussing some of the unintended consequences of intensive parenting and highlighting important implications for understanding immigrant education.

The impacts of COVID-19 may be magnified in a shared environment like the household, especially with people spending extended time at home during the pandemic. Family resilience is the ability of a family to adapt to crisis and can be a protective factor against stress and negative affect. While there have been calls to address family resilience during the pandemic, there is a lack of empirical study on its benefit. In this dyadic observational study, we sought to investigate the concordance of family members’ psychological responses to COVID-19, whether dyad members’ risk factors (COVID-19 exposure and financial impact) mutually affected each other’s psychological responses, and importantly, whether family resilience was a significant factor in these responses. A total of 200 family dyads from the same household completed the Family Resilience Assessment Scale and questionnaires on COVID-19 threat perception, impacts, and exposure. We found concordant dyad responses for COVID-19 threat perception, but not for psychological impact. Using the Actor-Partner-Interdependence Model framework, we found that one’s psychological impact was affected by the financial impact from both dyad members. After controlling for risk factors and demographic covariates, we found that family resilience significantly associated with lower COVID-19 psychological impact, though not with threat perception. The findings suggest that both family and individual factors need to be addressed and there may be benefit in addressing multilevel risk and protective factors using an ecological systems approach, which may help prepare the population for future crises. Copyright © 2022 Ho, Chew, Mahirah and Thumboo.

This study explored the relationships between five types of everyday family routines (leisure, chores, TV viewing, worship, and meals) with family satisfaction, and the degree to which work–family fit (WFF) moderated this relationship. Data come from a nationally representative sample of workers in Singapore, using a subset of 623 married, employed parents. Results revealed that family routines were differentially related to family satisfaction, with TV viewing having the strongest positive relationship. WFF itself was directly related to greater family satisfaction and also moderated the relationships between family routines and family satisfaction. Findings suggest WFF – the perception of successfully integrating work and personal/family life – is strongly related to family satisfaction and may play a role in helping employed parents to experience benefits in the home, in the workplace, and even in their health and well‐being.;This study explored the relationships between five types of everyday family routines (leisure, chores, TV viewing, worship, and meals) with family satisfaction, and the degree to which work–family fit (WFF) moderated this relationship. Data come from a nationally representative sample of workers in Singapore, using a subset of 623 married, employed parents. Results revealed that family routines were differentially related to family satisfaction, with TV viewing having the strongest positive relationship. WFF itself was directly related to greater family satisfaction and also moderated the relationships between family routines and family satisfaction. Findings suggest WFF – the perception of successfully integrating work and personal/family life – is strongly related to family satisfaction and may play a role in helping employed parents to experience benefits in the home, in the workplace, and even in their health and well‐being. Key points Work‐family fit is an important issue that represents how well employees balance work and family. Work‐family fit is related to employees' self‐reports of their level of satisfaction with their families. Work‐family fit seems to influence how often employees participate in various activities with their families.;