MOVE OVER GLORIA STEINEM 

North American women may soon be receiving, if not CARE packages, books and advice from the women in Singapore, whose pay scales have rapidly increased to 75 percent (1987 figure) of that of males. In North America the average rate is 70 percent and in Japan 50 percent.

This is astounding. Oriental ladies traditionally have had a rough time in the past, due to a male hierarchy even more firmly entrenched than in North America.

More than 50 percent of women on this tiny island are not only working but they are also moving into senior positions. This is due in part to the phenomenal economic accomplishments of this formerly British colony with a population of 2.4 million, just down the causeway from Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. As one of the four Dragons (or Tigers), along with Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, this group in 1989 will export more product than Japan! Yet, their populations total only 70 percent of Japan's.

Educational levels of women in Singapore are rising faster than men's, which has given women more social and career opportunities than in other major Asian countries. They aren't stopping now. In 1970, 54 percent of women aged 20-24 were working. That figure today is 81 percent. Any women will tell you this economic freedom is more important than rights granted on paper.

The percentage of girls aged 15 to 19 in the work force dropped from 43 percent to 27 percent in the past 18 years. Why? More are going to school to acquire the increased skills needed in their increasingly high-tech society. Employed women are already better educated than men. Fifty-six percent have a secondary education compared to males at 47 percent. Women have benefited by not having to serve the mandatory two years of military service. So they get a two year jump at university over males in the same age group. Women also get into the job market earlier and are fairly well established by the time men finish military training and university. So guess who has the "lock' on such professions as service industries and the media.

Today 90 percent of the editorial staff on the leading Englishlanguage newspapers "The Straits Times and the "Business Times" are women, although senior editors are still men. Labor participation rates used to be far higher for Chinese women than Malays or Indians, but during the past decade they are moving into the work-force faster than the Chinese.

Singapore does have a problem. They want their better-educated women to have more babies and the uneducated to have fewer. They voice concerns, muted in North America, about damage to the "gene pool" by having large numbers of poorly educated people dominating, in numbers, the total population. In fact women who reach a certain level of education are paid up to S$10,000 (US$5,100) in tax relief for each of their first three children. Those with lower educational levels get $10,000 too, but only if they agree to sterilization after their first or second child.

However, women's rights to abortion have never been legally challenged in Singapore. Women in Singapore had rights to divorce, with mutual consent, two years before it was allowed in Britain. The country's Employment Act guarantees eight weeks' of maternity leave to all employees, and for those in government jobs, leave on an unpaid basis can be extended up to four years.

With newly acquired financial clout women may move into the previously-closed political field. Due to the apparently tight labor market in Singapore and the decision by many in Hong Kong to emigrate well before 1997, Singapore may end up with far more mobility and scope for women, (despite the present male dominated political picture) than in other developed countries.

But the real kicker is the effect of women on Singapore's economic growth. In 1988 Singapore grew at an annual rate of 11 percent and real wages rose 8.7 percent. Their inflation was just 1.5 percent and unemployment 1.9 percent. Forty percent of income goes into savings. The highest personal income tax rate is 33 percent. Watch for many in Hong Kong to switch from the flow to western countries and divert to the tiny giant, Singapore. With new money, talent and entrepreneurial drive moving in from Hong Kong, Singapore has no where to go but up. This country, like Hong Kong before it has learned how the new age of globalization really works.

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