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Looking at specific attributes, more employees faced discrimination related to mental health, maternal, disability, nationality, religion, and marital status than in 2021.
Fewer employees in Singapore experienced discrimination at work in 2022 when compared to the year before, with figures on a continued decline.
In particular, according to the Fair Employment Practices 2022 report, released by the Manpower Research and Statistics Department (MRSD), Ministry of Manpower (MOM), 8.2% of employees surveyed faced discrimination, down from 8.5% in 2021 – cited as "significantly lower" than the 24.1% recorded in 2018.
What forms of discrimination did employees face?
According to the findings, some of the common forms of discrimination at work were mental health (4.7%), age (3.7%), and race (2.6%). In total, 10 attributes were noted down, with the proportion of employees who faced them compared with the year before. Of all, those that saw a year-on-year increase include mental health, maternal, disability, nationality, religion, and marital status. The overall data is as follows:
The MRSD noted that the above data is based on those who have worked as an employee in the year prior to the conduct of the survey. It added that the incidence of discrimination for each specific attribute do not sum to the overall incidence of 8.5% in 2021 and 8.2% in 2022, and that an employee who faced discrimination may face multiple forms of discrimination.
In that vein, the report further highlighted the types of unfair treatment employees faced when discriminated, with the more commonly reported ones being related to remuneration (salary: 56%; bonus: 36.7%), workload distribution (46%), and career progression (appraisal: 44.7%; promotion: 44.7%; and career development: 38.7%).
Nearly double the number of employees facing discrimination sought help
On a positive note, the share of employees who sought help when they faced discrimination at work nearly doubled to 35.5% in 2022, from 20% recorded in 2021. Out of this share, the majority (75.3%) were able to do so via the formal help provided by their firm or their union. Meanwhile, 16.1% sought informal help from their co-workers, friends, or family; and 5.4% sought help from the Government (Employment Claims Tribunals, MOM, Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices).
Among those who chose not to seek help, the most common reasons cited were ‘fear of being marginalised at work or affecting work relations negatively’ (23.1%) as well as having ‘repercussions on career’ (21.5%), with the remaining being:
- Fear of being marginalised at work or making work relations awkward (23.1%)
- Fear of impact on professional career/future job opportunities (21.5%)
- Past instances had led to a lack of trust in the management taking action or handling the case impartially (16.2%)
- Investigation outcome may not yield satisfactory results (12.3%)
- Felt that the issue was not severe enough (6.9%)
- Uncomfortable sharing such private information with others (6.9%)
- Lack of proper procedures for raising such cases within the organisation (4.6%)
- Lack of anonymous internal feedback channels/options (3.8%)
- Not sure or unaware of the available avenues to seek help (3.1%)
Delving deeper, it was found that having formal procedures in place to manage workplace discrimination could deter acts of discrimination in the workforce. Specifically, when a firm has formal procedures to manage workplace discrimination (compared to one without), it reduces the predicted probability of being discriminated based on age by 2.7 percentage points (pp). It also reduces the predicted probability of race discrimination by 2.5pp, and, to a smaller extent, sex discrimination (-1.2pp), maternal discrimination (-1pp), and marital status discrimination (-0.9pp). This gives evidence to the importance of implementing formal procedures to manage workplace discrimination, it was added.
Discrimination faced by job seekers
Apart from the above, the report also revealed a drop in the proportion of job seekers who experienced discrimination during their job search, for the second consecutive year – recording 23.8% in 2022, down from 25.8% in 2021 and 42.7% in 2018. For this group, age (16.6%), race (7.1%), and mental health (5%) discrimination were the more common forms of discrimination faced while searching for a job, with the overall list being:
Looking at specifics, the most common source of discrimination experienced by job seekers remained job advertisements which stated a preference for specific demographic characteristics without justifications. However, the proportion of job seekers who indicated this form of discrimination has declined from 43.3% in 2021 to 33.9% in 2022. According to the report, this is due to more employers adhering to the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, which encourages employers to ensure that job advertisements state job-related criteria that are related to the qualifications, skills, knowledge, and experience of the candidates.
Additionally, job seekers also came across requests by employers for personal information that was not relevant to the job (23% in 2022, vs 19.5 in 2021), with age, marital status, and nationality were the most common types of personal information asked in job application forms or during interviews.
Finally, across age groups, job seekers aged 40 and above had a much higher incidence of being discriminated (33.9%) compared to younger job seekers (16.0%). While this was so, the likelihood of mature job seekers experiencing discrimination has declined from the previous year (41.7%), which the report attributes to employers placing more value on the experience and skills of this group.
About the report
The Supplementary Survey on Fair Employment Practices was conducted by MOM's MRSD under the Statistics Act (Chapter 317), from 10 October 2022 to 10 February 2023, to collect information on the prevalence of workplace discrimination during the 12-month period ending June 2022 (i.e., 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022), and procedures related to fair treatment at work.
The survey covered residents in the labour force aged 15 years and above (excluding full-time National Servicemen). A total of 3,600 residents in the labour force were surveyed, of whom 2,890 or 80.3% responded to the survey. About 97.9% of the respondents were in employment at any time during the 12-month period ending June 2022, and the remaining were either unemployed or had recently exited the labour force.
Photo & infographics: MRSD/MOM
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