It’s because the government here doesn’t believe in social security or welfare, which in a certain way forces the people to work till an old age, all the while contributing money to a mandatory (forced) retirement savings scheme called CPF. Low spending on social security and high savings in CPF allows the government to accumulate huge reserves so it can make big investments to generate even more reserves, but sometimes with disastrous results, like their 2007/08 investments in big banks like UBS, Citi and Merrill Lynch.