Opinion: Are the 5Cs still the Singaporean dream?

When I was a young boy, I’d often hear about the 5Cs. I can’t remember who said it—maybe it was my mother, or an uncle—or at which family dinner that it was brought up. But what I do remember is what each C meant: cash, condominium, car, credit card and country club. These 5 C-words were thought to make up the definition of the Singapore dream. And on and on, it was repeated ad nauseam all throughout my childhood in the ’90s and into the early 2000s.

Even as it disappeared one day, almost as if like vapours in the sunlight, the sentiment of the phrase stuck with me throughout my formative years in my early working years. “Cash” was the one thing I was constantly chasing in my early twenties. When I got my first credit card, I felt this beaming sense of pride that I had ticked off one of the Cs.

Yet as I grew older, I found that my priorities were shifting. Cash? Sure, that’s important (thank you, capitalism!), but country club? Not for me. Car and condo? Could live without them. My 5Cs have changed, and I suspect that this may also be the case for many Singaporeans.

Rather than do guesswork, we decided to ask a group of Singaporeans their thoughts on what the 5Cs are to them, and how the elusive and everchanging Singapore Dream has evolved with time.

Of the 60 people that we polled, we spoke to three groups of 20 people in the Gen Z age range of 18 to 27 years old, the millennial generation that ranges from 28 to 43 years old, and the Gen X’s aged between 44 to 59 years old. Here’s what we found.

Happiness above all else

I’ll be honest. Prior to starting my polling exercise, I made the big bet that Singaporeans would still come through with cash still being the top choice. After all, we all know cash is king. So imagine this writer’s surprise when the results came back and the top choice was ‘Contentment’.

With 40 people ranking it as one of their 5Cs in our survey, it seems that contentment was top of mind for many of the people we polled. Makes sense, given that last year, a study found that nine out of 10 Singaporeans say they are feeling stressed out by life. And while a 2024 study found that Singapore is the happiest country in Southeast Asia, we’re still in the 30th position, behind the likes of Finland and Denmark.

We often think of Singaporeans as quick to complain, and slow to find joy and satisfaction in most things. We know the stereotype involves plenty of nagging, grumbling and airing dissatisfaction with everything from the state of public transport to the weather. Little wonder then, that more than half of the Singaporeans we spoke to ranked contentment as their ultimate life goal.

Cash is still important

Coming in a close second, ‘Cash’ was selected by 39 individuals as one of their 5Cs. Here, we’ve defined cash as not just the concept of printed dollar bills, but we wanted to expand the definition of cash to include investments, assets and liquidity.

Is this surprising? Hardly. We all know that with the rising costs of living, the idea of having liquidity for a rainy day is something that many Singaporeans would prioritise.

In a study by Fullerton Fund Management this year, they’ve also found that Singaporeans still remain active investors and on the lookout for more investment opportunities. Looking back at 2023, Endowus also found that 60 percent of Singaporeans are already dabbling in the investment markets.

We’re pragmatists at heart. We know that it’s no longer enough to just have money sitting in our bank accounts, we have to make our cash work harder and grow more. Singaporeans generally are upwardly aspiring, and having this power to spend helps you feel like you’re scaling higher.

Health is wealth

Out of the 60 people we spoke to, 35 people highlighted ‘Corporeal Wellness’ as one of their key Cs. (Okay, we know that corporeal wellness is a longer way of saying health in both physical and mental aspects, but we needed a C-word, so don’t judge.)

Think back to the many times you’ve gotten birthday wishes, or in conversations with friends and family, and try to recall how many times you’ve heard someone say “it’s more important to be healthy”.

No wonder health was ranked in third place, because increasingly, we pay more attention to our bodies and our mental wellness. Since Covid, many of us have found our joys in exercising and moving as a reaction to the cooped-up nature of lockdowns. 70 percent of Singaporeans have opted to pay for private Integrated Shield Plans (IPs) on top of MediShield Life, the Ministry of Health reported just last month, which means that seven in 10 Singaporeans are able to opt for better coverage should they need to be hospitalised.

Health is so key to us, that we’ve now seen the importance of it over our own career-building aspirations.

Work is important, but not the biggest priority

The buzz phrase “work-life balance” has long been tossed around everywhere, all the time. Yet as with many idealistic terminologies, achieving this balance is often easier said than done. We’re married to our mobile phones, where every email and work WhatsApp dings throughout the day. We’ve heard of the stories of our friends leaving birthday parties midway to take a work call, or having to burn through their weekends to catch up on work.

Singaporeans we spoke to are ranking ‘Career’ lower on the scale of things that they find importance in. Coming in fourth place with 27 people ticking this box, the fact that career occupies lesser of a purview in the sample group also speaks to the multi-faceted nature of ‘Contentment’. It seems that lesser people find happiness and satisfaction in their career, and that their sources of joy can come from other avenues of life beyond the office place.

Even as we were emerging out of the pandemic, there were plenty of conversations around the balance between work and mental health. In 2022, Randstad, a recruitment agency, found that 70 percent of their polled participants said that they had abysmal work-life balance, and almost half of the polled participants said that they had plans to quit their jobs within the next year.

When you consider this, and that many Singaporeans are chasing contentment, it shows you a clearer picture of prioritising one’s health, one’s happiness and passions beyond just the regular confines of chasing a stellar career.

All we really want is to be comfortable

Rounding up the final C-word is ‘Comfort’, a choice made by 25 people.

Singaporeans want to be comfortable. They want to be able to travel without having to scrimp and worry about their finances for the months before and after the trip. They want to be able to afford the little luxuries—from fancy brunches and being able to afford good bottles of wine for friendly dinners to the occasional luxury splurge—and not have to deal with the anxiety of sacrificing something. They want to be able to do the things that they love and are passionate about, and do it at a pace that they are comfortable and happy with.

Comfort is often something that we take for granted, but in building our new and ideal version of the Singapore Dream, it’s something that remains integral to the goal that we are shooting for: a life that is comfortable and without strife.

And if we look at the new 5Cs that define the Singapore Dream, it seems clear that the shift has gone away from the materialistic things such as owning a condominium or being able to throw down a black credit card. Out of the five, three are ideals: comfort, happiness and wellness. If this is to be the new Singapore Dream, then maybe, we’re going to be alright.

This article was published in Harper’s Bazaar Singapore.