9 in 10 Singaporeans do not feel well prepared for retirement

ChannelNewsAsia.com

SINGAPORE: Ninety—one per cent of Sin­ga­pore­ans do not feel well—prepared for retire­ment com­pared to the global aver­age of 87 per cent, accord­ing to an annual report by Oxford University’s Insti­tute of Age­ing on Wednesday.

The Oxford Insti­tute of Age­ing is known for its geron­to­log­i­cal research and train­ing programmes.

Sin­ga­pore, like most coun­tries in the world, is fac­ing an age­ing pop­u­la­tion. In fact, the num­ber of depen­dent adults is expected to sur­pass the num­ber of depen­dent chil­dren for the first time next year.

The Oxford report sug­gested that the low level of pre­pared­ness is linked to a lack of access to finan­cial advice. Although Sin­ga­pore has a wide range of retire­ment prod­ucts avail­able, more could be done to edu­cate fam­i­lies to plan for the long term.

The team respon­si­ble for the report con­ducted a work­shop in Sin­ga­pore to help stake­hold­ers from the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors, non—government organ­i­sa­tions and aca­d­e­mics plan for an age­ing society.

Par­tic­i­pants were asked to sug­gest pol­icy solu­tions for a vari­ety of situations.

At the end of the three—day pro­gramme on Wednes­day, researchers felt that Sin­ga­pore is well—equipped to deal with an age­ing pop­u­la­tion because there is a high level of aware­ness of the issues. One of the key solu­tions for Sin­ga­pore is to keep older work­ers employed.

Dr George Lee­son, deputy direc­tor, Oxford Insti­tute of Age­ing, said: “Gov­ern­ments need to help employ­ers, employ­ers need to help employ­ees, and trade unions need to play a role. I know that in Sin­ga­pore there are moves for re—employment leg­is­la­tion in 2012.

“What I think employ­ers have to remem­ber is that they are the peo­ple they have to keep in the work­place because there is going to be a demand for the skills they have.”

Indi­vid­u­als are also encour­aged to take respon­si­bil­ity for their own retire­ment by plan­ning early, espe­cially for finan­cial security.

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