[refurb]

Singapore has been high income since the 1980's and still has a very intense Asian work culture. The latest generation or two grew up in a very comfortable lifestyle, so any sense of "desperate poverty" is something their grandparents talk about. It even rare for Singaporeans to do much manual labor now, it's mostly done by foreign workers.

And other SE Asian countries (poorer than Singapore) have more of a reputation of "work shy" cultures. If you can work enough so you're not starving and have a house and beer to drink, why work harder?

So clearly the link between poverty and a "work hard" culture is pretty weak.