PERCEPTIONS OF WET MARKETS ACROSS GENERATIONS

Abstract

Traditional wet markets known for its historical and cultural significance trace back to Singapore’s early years in the heyday of street hawking trade businesses. The markets offer a myriad of hand-picked selection of fresh produce and serves as a place-making function to provide opportunities for residents to interact and foster community bonding.

However, the rapid urbanisation has led to behavioural and lifestyle shift from the older generation to the younger generation. In addition, the expansion of modern supermarkets and e-commerce disruptions led to its questionable future practicality of wet markets for succeeding generations. Today, there are 80 wet markets left island-wide, a significant decline from approximately 140 markets during the 1980s.

The aim of the paper is to investigate the perceptions of Singapore’s wet markets across generations in evaluating the practicality of traditional marketplace in the modern context. The paper will touch on the grocery shopping platform preferences and their perceived influencing factors, the satisfaction levels of traditional and modern marketplace, the association between patron’s ethnic group and their frequented wet markets, as well as the public’s views on the significance of wet markets.

The survey findings revealed that amongst 90.4% of the respondents who are involved in grocery shopping the past one year, only a mere 27.4% had frequented the wet markets. The detailed case study on the similar challenges faced by wet markets in Hong Kong will give further insights on the stakeholders’ intervention to revitalise the traditional marketplace which Singapore could adopt and implement sustainable solutions to preserve its trade.