In this author session moderated by Dr Walid Jumblatt, author Teo You Yenn will discuss the main themes of her book, Unease: Life in Singapore Families.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Teo You Yenn is an Associate Professor and Provost’s Chair in Sociology, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Inequality, at Nanyang Technological University. Her research focuses on poverty and inequality, care/welfare regimes, gender and class inequalities, and minimum income standards. She is a founding co-editor of AcademiaSG, an initiative to promote Singapore studies and encourage critical debate about the state of intellectual life in Singapore.
Her books include This is What Inequality Looks Like and Unease: Life in Singapore Families.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
In Singapore, a loudly ‘pro-family’ society, why is work-life balance so elusive? And why are parents so uneasy? What accounts for this gap between the lived reality and ideal narrative of Singapore families?
Sociologist and bestselling author Teo You Yenn turns her eyes to the contours and rhythms of life inside families, exploring how ‘kiasu’ parents are made and investigating the ways in which inequality marks life in contemporary Singapore. Drawing from in-depth interviews with parents from all walks of life, Unease examines how social structures, individual strategies and common practices come to produce Singaporean ‘cultures’ of doing family.
An incisive exposé of how the logics of hierarchy, competition and unequal worth infect ordinary people’s lives, Unease asks what these cost parents, children and the values we hold as a society. And what possibilities are there for living differently?
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📍Venue: Wardah Books
🏢 Address: 58 Bussorah St, Singapore 199474
🗓️ Date: Thursday, 7 May 2026
🕛 Time: 8.00 pm - 9.00 pm
🎟️ RSVP: Free, no registration required.