In Anne Karpf's NY Times article (The Liberation of Growing Old), she makes the point that whatever we believe about old age is not a given. Instead, what we think old is, what we think we will be and what we think it entails is a social construct. We are socialised into old age. It is true that one's cognitive and physical agility reduces with age, but the extent to which it is true has been grossly exaggerated. The fact that increasing numbers of seniors remain economically productive into their golden years while more young people are experiencing prolonged periods of unemployment makes the point. Yet, rampant ageism is on the rise, so much so that "gerontophobia" is now the new buzz word.
While I wouldn't say Singapore's been immune to "gerontophobia", I would say the government's definitely been at the forefront of combating its ill effects what with the Ministry of Health-led 'Council for Third Age' and the Agency for Integrated Care led 'Singapore Silver Age' both of which offer a holistic set of services from healthcare to workplace opportunities for the elderly. It wasn't that the "dependency ratio" or "age quake" (or "silver tsunami") wasn't a major driving force behind the government's concerns. Policy considerations in Singapore will always be driven by dollars and cents/sense, but I think credit should be given where credit is due. The policy approach adopted by the government is holistic. To successfully embrace a major elderly population as part of Singapore's future, policy provisions for the integrated of a significant senior population needs to be holistic and integrated. That means more than just providing elderly healthcare services. It requires an entirely transformation of what old age means and how we respond to it as a whole society.
Will Singapore do better than the US? Yes and no. I suppose unlike the US, Singapore's a small nation-state with power more or less in the hands of a single ruling party, so that means it is relatively easy to push through much needed reforms like anti-ageist policies which attempt to reconfigure and revalue the place of the elderly in a society. It also helps that traditional 'asian values' (whatever that means) is said to accord a fair amount of respect for the elderly, which might make it less difficult to justify pro-elderly policies e.g. the Pioneer Generation Package, which provides various subsidies for those who can't support themselves. There were no detractors on that I think partly because there's a broad level of societal support for caring for our seniors.
What is more a problem is the idea of workplace integration (i.e., workplace discrimination). Culturally, from the perspective of the seniors themselves, there is a lot of 'face' to be loss working well into one's old age. The fact that most job positions open to seniors today seem to be of the blue-collar variety, sends out the message that our seniors can only do 'those kinds of jobs'. The real test of whether Singapore's succeeded in combatting ageism is really the level of integration and acceptance they get in all occupations, which includes the white-collar, mid-level executive positions as well.
The Ministry of Manpower runs the Tripartite Committee on Employability of Older Workers (aka a government controlled labour union) to safeguard the interests of senior workers. The legal provisions are definitely an important step. Workplace discrimination, which is social in nature, and where both the young and old have to take responsibility for, is a much more insidious and hard to combat. But if what Anne Karpf says it's true, that discrimination against the elderly is fundamentally social in nature, then at least there's hope for a better tomorrow.
While I wouldn't say Singapore's been immune to "gerontophobia", I would say the government's definitely been at the forefront of combating its ill effects what with the Ministry of Health-led 'Council for Third Age' and the Agency for Integrated Care led 'Singapore Silver Age' both of which offer a holistic set of services from healthcare to workplace opportunities for the elderly. It wasn't that the "dependency ratio" or "age quake" (or "silver tsunami") wasn't a major driving force behind the government's concerns. Policy considerations in Singapore will always be driven by dollars and cents/sense, but I think credit should be given where credit is due. The policy approach adopted by the government is holistic. To successfully embrace a major elderly population as part of Singapore's future, policy provisions for the integrated of a significant senior population needs to be holistic and integrated. That means more than just providing elderly healthcare services. It requires an entirely transformation of what old age means and how we respond to it as a whole society.
Will Singapore do better than the US? Yes and no. I suppose unlike the US, Singapore's a small nation-state with power more or less in the hands of a single ruling party, so that means it is relatively easy to push through much needed reforms like anti-ageist policies which attempt to reconfigure and revalue the place of the elderly in a society. It also helps that traditional 'asian values' (whatever that means) is said to accord a fair amount of respect for the elderly, which might make it less difficult to justify pro-elderly policies e.g. the Pioneer Generation Package, which provides various subsidies for those who can't support themselves. There were no detractors on that I think partly because there's a broad level of societal support for caring for our seniors.
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