Seeing Class: Housing Diversity Heightens Class Salience and Perceived Neighbourhood Diversity In Singapore

We examined how objective neighbourhood socioeconomic diversity—measured by class fractionalization—predicts perceived class diversity in Singapore. A nationally-representative survey data (N=4,430) revealed that housing, but not income, diversity influenced respondents’ perceived neighbourhood diversity through heightened class salience, suggesting that visible class signals shape people’s subjective experiences of class diversity.