Work-life balance has come to the fore in Singapore as in other countries. Debates have focused on uneven gendered burdens. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which class matters in shaping outcomes for women. In this article, I argue that the work-care regime in Singapore is one that generates uneven consequences for women along class lines. The historical legacy of eugenics-influenced pronatalism, the pursuit of a corporation-centric development, the persistent reticence toward universal provisions and corresponding preference for 'private' solutions to care create a context in which women in low-income households have an especially hard time balancing wage work and familial responsibilities. The individualization and marketization of household needs, in Singapore and elsewhere, obscure the circumstances, needs, and well-being of women in lower class circumstances, and undermine the value of housework and care labor.

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Large-scale immigration has turned Singapore into a highly diverse setting, where migrants and local-born Singaporeans encounter one another on a daily basis. In the past decade, the city-state has seen rising debates and contestations over racism, despite being known as a racially harmonious society. This article situates the public discourse on racism and “Chinese privilege” in the context of superdiversity and examines its wider implications for theorization and policy. Approaching the paradox of superdiversity from a political economy perspective, we investigate how three sets of factors have contributed to the rising public discourse on racism not only between migrants and locals but also among local-born Singaporeans: i) immigration regime and the strategy toward a knowledge economy, ii) new patterns of electoral politics, and iii) the impacts of China's growing influences in Southeast Asia. This article offers two broader theoretical implications for the scholarship on migration and race relations in a context of superdiversity. First, the paradoxical co-existence of superdiversity and racism obtains not only between migrants and natives, as many studies have shown, but also between native races in the host society. Second, diversifications and new forms of contestations and racism are not only a result of the immigration regime and domestic politics of the host country, but are also shaped by the international political economy, as evidenced by the way in which the rise of China has intensified contestations on race relations in Singapore. © HONG LIU AND LINGLI HUANG, 2022.

In combination with their strategy to recruit foreign talent, Singaporean state authorities have increasingly focused their attention on community integration schemes for Chinese professional newcomers. The government facilitated such integration with the creation of the Kowloon Club in 1990. The Kowloon Club is not only a government experiment that has been repeated three times since then, but also the only new migrant association that does not explicitly target Mainlanders. Through in-depth interviews with the Club’s leadership, I explore the ethnic adaptation of the Kowloon Club membership as it negotiates the evolving sense of Chineseness found in state designs and Singaporean society. Much like the emergence of the 1997 Hong Kongese identity, the Kowloon Club’s activities have shifted in strong reaction to the racialized category put forth by state authorities and embodied by Mainlander professionals in that the Club’s activities now symbolize and help patrol what Chineseness means as everyday performance in the city-state.