Affluent, young, female and educated: The Singapore consumers most sympathetic to social causes

AS South-east Asia has been weathering its way through the second wave of the pandemic during 2021, its residents have been getting used to life in and out of lockdown.

With lockdown, residents have been spending more time watching television and on social media, and getting up to speed on social changes that have been happening around the world since the start of the pandemic.

Attitudes towards social justice issues in the region have remained fragmented, following similar trends in the rest of the world. Overwhelmingly, the biggest supporters of social issues seem to be the younger generations, and in particular, females. But there are substantial differences between countries in South-east Asia, and between genders and income groups.

In a survey of 42 countries published in September 2021 by London- headquartered data and analytics firm, GlobalData, 38 per cent of the 23,499 respondents declared that gender equality was an extremely important matter. The average response across Asean's six largest economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) was a much higher 45 per cent, although results in the region differed markedly. Some 71 per cent of respondents from the Philippines agreed with this against only 24 per cent of respondents in Singapore. Interestingly enough, the responses from Singapore were equally matched by gender, perhaps suggesting that females do not see gender equality as being an issue.

Responses to the question about the importance of gender orientation equality (for example, LGBTQIA+) received a slightly less enthusiastic response. Only 27 per cent of global respondents decided this was extremely important. The response from Asean was a similarly tepid 29 per cent indicating that this is not a priority issue, although Gen Z respondents (aged up to 24) in the region were somewhat higher at 31 per cent. Again, there was a very large variation in the region. Only 13 per cent of Singapore respondents felt this was very important against 59 per cent of those in the Philippines and 40 per cent of those in Thailand which were outliers on the support side. Taking out the Philippines and Thailand, the average Asean response for this issue would be 18 per cent.

It is perhaps interesting to note that for all these questions, the Philippines had the highest percentage score globally for indicating "extremely important" out of all 42 countries surveyed and Singapore had one of the lowest alongside Russia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and South Korea.

There was somewhat more concern globally and locally for the question about the importance of the issue of racial equality with the examples being given to the respondents of the US-based movements Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate. For this issue, 37 per cent of global respondents indicated that it was extremely important against an average of 45 per cent for Asean respondents. The Philippines again showed the strongest support for this issue (71 per cent) with Singapore the weakest (22 per cent). Gen Z respondents indicate 45 per cent support whereas only 27 per cent of boomers in the region were in favour.

VARYING ENTHUSIASM BY INCOME LEVELS

Another area where the Asean region showed more interest than their global counterparts and where there was a much more uniformly higher level of regional support was with the issue of environmental protection. 48 per cent of global respondents indicated that this was extremely important against an Asean average of 56 per cent with Philippines again in pole position (77 per cent) followed by Indonesia at 64 per cent. In Singapore, a smaller level of 32 per cent of respondents supported the issue of environmental protection, perhaps because the island-state does not suffer the typhoons and extreme flooding of its neighbours.

Environmental issues seem to be popular in the Asean region, and yet there are interesting variations in enthusiasm within the region when responses are broken down further by income levels.

In an earlier global survey of 6,329 respondents across 42 countries published in March 2021 by GlobalData, 25 per cent of respondents indicated that they would prefer to buy from companies that support social causes. Similarly 26 per cent of respondents indicated that they were more likely to purchase from companies with an ethical supply chain. A larger proportion of 34 per cent indicated support for companies that used environmentally friendly packages.

Responses within the Asean region were generally higher than the global average for all three of these questions, indicating a favourable market for companies that support social causes, use ethical supply chains and use environmentally friendly packages.

However when analysed by income groups, it was clear that more affluent consumers favoured ethical supply chains and environmentally friendly packaging, whereas the less affluent consumers seemed to favour companies that supported social causes. For most Asean countries, the difference in support for these issues when comparing high to low earners levels was typically in the region of three to eight percentage points.

Singapore respondents were again the outlier. The difference between high and low earners was as much as 14 percentage points for the issue of ethical supply chains and 10 percentage points for the issue of environmentally friendly packaging. In all instances, the more affluent voters were more in favour of support for companies that were more sustainable.

Hence, support for social causes in the Asean region seems to be as varied as it is in the rest of the world. The environment does seem to be a non-contentious winning cause for corporations to champion. But as with the rest of the world, consumers in South-east Asia, and particularly the older ones, do not seem likely to want to pay more for brands that champion social causes.

• The writer is key accounts director, South-east Asia, of GlobalData.