1 in 2 people experienced discrimination at work: Aware-Milieu survey

One in two people has experienced workplace discrimination, and cases involving race are the most common, followed by those involving age and gender.

People with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and women experienced more workplace discrimination than others.

These results from the first survey on workplace discrimination conducted by gender advocacy group Aware and consumer research company Milieu Insight were released on Tuesday. The survey was conducted last month, a year after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that Singapore would enact anti-discrimination legislation.

Ms Corinna Lim, Aware's executive director, said she hopes that the survey results can contribute to Singapore's upcoming anti-discrimination legislation.

A sample of 1,000 respondents were polled on their experiences of direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in the workplace in the last five years. Indirect discrimination refers to workplace policies that apply to all staff, but disproportionately affect a marginalised group.

The survey also found that 54 per cent of those who felt discriminated at work did not report it to any channels such as a boss, the company's human resources department or the Manpower Ministry. They did not believe the discrimination was severe enough, did not trust the authorities to act on their report or did not have enough evidence of discrimination.

Almost the same proportion - about 28 per cent - of respondents who reported discrimination and those who did not report it ended up quitting their jobs.

Read the full feature on The Straits Times.

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