When Retirement( Old) Age Not A Blessing

This is what I picked up from a local paper The Star today as reported by its reporter Mr. Seah Chiang Nee, based on the island republic and rich state, Singapore.

The report told that that wealthy Singapore has unfolded a strategy to deal with the plight of a growing number of financially strapped retirees who live for 20 years with insufficient savings. As a results of better lifestyles the people in the city state are living longer today - 82 years compared with 66 years in 1970. But according to the report not everyone finds it a blessing. Singapore, according to the reporter has one of the fastest growing ageing population in Asia. Further, with the rising cost of living, especially in the health care, senior citizens who have little education, money or family support are becoming the country's rising disenchanted. The retirement age is 62. The report also mentioned that at last count there were 400,000 Singaporeans aged 60 or older, but only 73,000 or 18% of them were working.

The main theme of the strategy according to the reporter is to get Singaporean to carry on working beyond 62 years, the retirement age in the city state and increase age old savings so that it can last longer. Now payout has been increased by 1 % to 3.5% to the Central Provident Funds(401 (k) scheme equivalent) deposit of up to S$60,000 with the rest remaining at 2.5%.

My main point of highlighting the report is to increase the awareness of the correlation that exists between retirement age and longer life span. This report is also consistent with my earlier findings on the impact of longer life span to retirement age and their consequences. As mentioned in my previous posting on " Life Expectancy and Retirement Age", there are tendencies for the governments to adjust the retirement age upward to cater for the longer living population. This will put the pressure off of the pension burden on the governments. From my research, Singapore is not alone as most developed countries of the world are facing similar problems. Japan and Germany are another examples.