Ideas Festival 2026 | Still Worth Doing? A Public Conversation on the Future of Work
Perhaps the only thing clear about the future of work is its own uncertainty. Yet, amid economic disruption and the rise of AI, public discussion has mostly been limited to predicting available jobs and “employable” degrees. This panel shifts our attention back to the question of work and its role in social life. What will change in the everyday tasks we fulfil as workers, and what meaning should we give to such efforts? What sort of career is still worthy of human skill and emotion? How do we review a performance when labor is partly outsourced to technology?
Featuring researchers from across Singapore’s universities, this panel will discuss the changes and challenges in three major aspects of work: care, creativity, and communications. In looking ahead, this panel explores not only what jobs will likely persist, but how work must and should evolve. Join us to reimagine the future of work!
*Registration starts at 3.00pm. Light refreshment will be served during registration.
Contact: socsc_seminar@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: Chair: , Yasmin Y. Ortiga
Associate Professor of Sociology, SMU
Yasmin is Associate Professor of Sociology at SMU’s School of Social Sciences. She studies how the changing ideas of “skill” shapes how and why people migrate across borders. Her book, Stuck at Home: Pandemic Immobilities in the Nation of Emigration was published by Stanford University Press.
Panellists:
, Cheng Chi-Ying
Associate Professor of Psychology, SMU
Chi-Ying is Associate Professor of Psychology at School of Social… RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=ynmKyZpakUeiQ_Bq_WdGTUGH9G9u-WtAl9UVUOJ8iDJUMjVNMUJHSzQ2UUVITFkyU1hMSkY4RFlQNC4u&route=shorturl. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Social Sciences & Humanities. Audience: Public. Academic Community. Alumni. Current Student. SMU Faculty & Staff.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
SMU Yong Pung How School of Law
Level 4, Function Lounge 4-2
55 Armenian Street, Singapore 179943.
For more info visit forms.office.com. SOSS Seminar | Bastardised Republicanism: Montesquieu and the Spirit of Public Law
What explains the eighteenth-century attraction to Montesquieu? Perhaps it was that he perfected a distinctly modern mode of moral-political thought. One where the modern world comes across as complex and liquid, productive of alienation, but which does not induce a theory that is sceptical or relativist.
Read against this background, his work reveals twin narratives of decline. One is Ancient - Rome recurs as an idealised model of civic unity and virtuous republicanism. The other is Modern - contemporary European civilisation appears expansive, unruly, and unprincipled, rendering older forms (including monarchy and classical republicanism) increasingly obsolete.
Montesquieu’s response is a pragmatic, ersatz republicanism rooted not in civic virtue but in commercial frugality - a form I term “bastardised republicanism”. England functions for him as the modern analogue of Rome: a commercial republic held together by separation of powers and the tempering effects of commerce. Taking seriously Montesquieu’s view…
Contact: socsc_seminar@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: SPEAKER, , Thomas Poole
Professor of Law
London School of Economics
Thomas Poole joined LSE in 2006, and has been Professor of Law since 2015. His research interests include UK constitutional and administrative law, legal and political theory, foreign relations law, constitutional history, law and empire, and the history of political thought. He is author of Reason of State: Law, Prerogative and Empire (Cambridge, 2015) and co-editor of volumes on Hobbes and the Law (Cambridge, 2012), Law, Liberty and… RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.office.com/r/dmNAyPJhp3. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Social Sciences & Humanities. Audience: Public. Academic Community. Alumni. Current Student. SMU Faculty & Staff.
Thursday, March 26, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
SMU Yong Pung How School of Law
Seminar Room 2-02, Level 2
55 Armenian St, Singapore 179943.
For more info visit forms.office.com. SOSS Seminar | The Role of Graduate Education in the Rising Wage Premium for Professional and Managerial Occupations, 1980-2019
A large part of the rise in U.S. wage inequality over recent decades comes from a widening gap between professional/managerial (PM) and other occupations (NPM). We examine the trend in this gap from 1980 to 2019 highlighting the role of graduate degrees. Using a decomposition-of-change technique, we show that the increased gap between NPM and PM in the proportion of their workers with graduate degrees explains approximately 20% of the growth in the wage premium for having a PM occupation. We find that wage returns rose modestly for having a BA/BS degree and dramatically for having a graduate degree. Regarding effects of education on holding a PM job, returns to having a BA/BS went down while returns to having a graduate degree stayed high. We discuss how our findings fit predictions from economists’ model of skill-biased technological change, a broader perspective positing the growth of the knowledge economy, and a sociological theory positing increasing Credentialism.
Contact: socsc_seminar@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: SPEAKER, , Paula England
Dean of Social Science
Professor of Social Research and Public Policy
New York University Abu Dhabi
Professor Paula England is Dean of Social Science and a Professor of Social Research and Public Policy at NYU Abu Dhabi. One branch of Professor England’s research concerns gender inequality at work and at home; she has written on the sex gap in pay, occupational segregation, how couples divide housework, and the wage penalty for motherhood. Her more recent work deals with… RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.office.com/r/qGqqKvtbnQ. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Social Sciences & Humanities. Audience: Public. Academic Community. Alumni. Current Student. SMU Faculty & Staff.
Wednesday, April 1, 2026, 3:45 PM – 5:15 PM.
SMU Yong Pung How School of Law
Seminar Room 2-05, Level 2
55 Armenian St, Singapore 179943.
For more info visit forms.office.com. SOSS Seminar | AI is Not a Natural Monopoly
Economists and antitrust scholars have recently warned that the AI industry may be a natural monopoly. In support of this claim, they have argued that the AI industry shares key features with natural monopolies of the past: First, like railroads, AI has high fixed and low marginal costs. That is, training a frontier AI is expensive, but asking it a question is cheap. Next, like social media, AI companies will benefit from network effects. The more users a company has, the more training data they can collect. This leads to better models, then more users, and so on. Finally, some antitrust scholars say, the AI industry is already too concentrated. Today, the market for frontier AI systems contains only three–maybe three and a half–players. Appearances here are, however, deceiving. This essay argues that the AI industry is not a natural monopoly. Nor is it plagued by the problems of market concentration today. To show why, the essay identifies three structural features of AI essential for understanding the indus…
Contact: socsc_seminar@smu.edu.sg. Speaker Details: SPEAKER
, Simon Goldstein
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Hong Kong
Simon’s research concerns a range of topics in AI governance and AI safety, surrounding optimal legal and economic institutions for governing AI agents. Along the way, he has written on AI monopoly, AI copyright law, AI international governance, and property and contract rights for AI agents. Before moving to Hong Kong University, Simon worked at the Centre for AI Safety, the Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, and at Lin… RSVP: . Reserve a seat: https://forms.office.com/r/zBfYxQx0RX. Type: Seminars & Workshops. Subject: Social Sciences & Humanities. Audience: Public. Academic Community. Alumni. Current Student. SMU Faculty & Staff.
Thursday, April 2, 2026, 3:45 PM – 5:15 PM.
SMU School of Accountancy
Seminar Room 2-3, Level 2
60 Stamford Rd, Singapore 178900.
For more info visit forms.office.com.