Singapore’s Changing Age Structure: Issues and Policy Implications for the Family and State

Abstract

This paper discusses the implications of population ageing for policies regarding support for older persons in Singapore. Singapore is one of the fastest ageing populations in Asia as a result of extremely successful family planning policies instituted in the 1960s (Saw 1999). As such, Singapore is an excellent case study of the effects of rapid ageing on State policies. Currently 7 percent of Singapore’s population is over the age of 65; however, by 2030 this will increase to 19 percent (Inter-Ministerial Committee on Ageing Report 1999). As Pool discusses in Chapter 2 of this volume, age-structural transitions affect supply and demand factors within a society, differentially putting pressure on key life-cycle stages and consequently policies catering to the needs of populations at specific ages. In this paper I discuss the policy implications of population ageing in the areas of financial security, employment, living arrangements, and health care. I combine this discussion with illustrations using recently available longitudinal data for Singapore. My focus is on the changing needs of the elderly over time and the need for policy makers to take these changes into account when developing policies for older adults. Given increases in life expectancy, the importance of changing needs within the span of ‘old age’ (from age 65 onwards) becomes even more pertinent. Longitudinal data provide for more accurate projections of the changing needs of the elderly over time (Andrews and Hermalin 2000). For example, housing and health care policies for the aged may have to be finetuned so as to cater to the specific needs of the young-old (65–74) versus the oldest-old (75+). The family has traditionally been the main source of support for the elderly in Asia, and Singapore is no exception. In recent decades, academic debate has centered upon gauging the effect of modernization or industrialization on levels of familial support (Cowgill and Holmes 1972; Martin and Kinsella 1994). This interest intersects with the awareness of policy-makers in Asia that traditional family support of the elderly may decline in future. There is some evidence of declining levels of familial support in countries such as China and India due to the effects of massive rural–urban migration of young adults, and changes in the occupational structures (World Bank 1994). This has led some policy makers to decry the influence of ‘Westernization’ and its by-product, individualism. However, there is also evidence to suggest that the Asian family is adapting to changing economies and that elderly well-being is not declining. Research on intergenerational transfers in Indonesia,