November 14, 2022

The Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Ageing Population (IMC) was established on 14 November 1998, to ensure a concerted national response in deliberating and recommending relevant policy directions on ageing issues. The IMC marked a shift in approach when it articulated a vision of “Successful Ageing in Singapore”, which frames the issues of ageing in a more positive manner – as challenges and opportunities rather than as a social problem. Guided by the overarching principle of the “many helping hands” approach, the IMC stressed the interdependent but functionally differentiated roles of the various stakeholders that are crucial in ensuring the well-being of older Singaporeans. Thus, the responsibility for preparing for old age is to fall primarily on the individual, with the family and community forming the first and second lines of support respectively. The state’s role includes providing a policy framework, infrastructure, and the necessary resources to boost the private and voluntary welfare sectors.

In ‘Singapore’s approach to ageing policies: Tackling the limits of the family in supporting seniors’ (from Family and Population Changes in Singapore (2018)), Associate Professor Thang Leng Leng (NUS Department of Japanese Studies) and Dr Johan Suen (NUS Department of Sociology and Anthropology) write about the developments in the Singapore government’s policies on ageing.

In contrast to social policy regimes where the state is largely responsible for the welfare of its citizens, Singapore adopts a “many helping hands” approach, which has been characterized as anti-welfare. Non-state actors – namely the family and the community – comprise the first and second lines of support for individuals.

Contrary to popular perception that the traditional norm of family support has been eroded, it continues to be robust and filial norms are found to be held among many younger Singaporeans. Nonetheless, in the face of declining average family sizes and availability of family caregivers, there remain serious concerns about whether the family can still be relied upon as the first line of support. In a policy framework based on the expectation that children should provide support for their elderly, it is inevitable that some older persons will fall through the cracks as changing life circumstances, such as divorce and familial conflict, have largely reduced their capacity to seek help from their children.

Changing trends in recent years provide indications that more seniors are seeking to be self-reliant and independent of their children. Among the seniors, those younger than 75 show a preference for independent living with their spouses. In terms of the support older persons receive, although transfers from children still constitute the primary source of income for seniors, there has been a decline in obtaining financial support from children and an increase in paid employment as a source of income for seniors. These trends indicate a gradual shift in the reliance on family and a growing expectation that seniors should be better prepared financially for retirement through Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings and by extending their working lives.

Read the article here.