People

A Bad Time To Be Old
It's not a good time to be a 40-plus worker anywhere. He's probably the first to lose his job and the last to find one.
Apr 6, 2001

"I am 29 years old and earning $4,000. How about you guys?" asked a Yuppie in a chat-room in Singapore. "How much do you think a guy my age should earn?"

Came one answer: "I'm 32. About $9,000."

A third person chipped in. "I am 60, been jobless for the past 18 years." This is an actual exchange in a chat-site.

But the way the world is spinning, it is throwing an increasing number of Singapore's aged - 40-plus - workers into a dilemma. Unless they have a special skill, they are prematurely classified as "old" in a punishing marketplace that prefers better-educated youths.

In the past three years, roughly two out of three laid off workers were above 35 years old. "There is evidence that many employers will not even interview older candidates," a government official said.

It has made the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62 in January last year quite irrelevant.

Its ridiculous to persuade bosses to retain 60-year-olds when many of them are firing - or turning away - much younger workers.

Fingers were crossed when the economy rose strongly last year but it brought no reprieve. The new economy is excluding most of the unskilled, including mid-level executives.

Web start-up companies in practically every country are looking for software engineers and technicians.

That means that Singaporeans above 45 are mostly excluded unless they own the company or manage it. Friends around my age know about my web-site, few have read it however well they wish me. Unless they are in the media, they don't know how to use the Net.

One of India's most successful e-entrepreneurs, Mr Narayana Murthy, operates a company at Silicon Valley and another at Bangalore, India, employs some 5,000 software engineers and technicians.

He has a company rule - only people below age 35 can take part in brain-storming meetings. He reckons designers seldom come younger; even if they do they don't have the e-ideas he wants for a young market.

Equally age-discriminating are fields such as fashion or toy designing, where the customers are very young.

All this is bad news for tiny Singapore with one of the fastest ageing populations in the world.

Those Left Out: What Can They Do?

As an old journalist, I have covered the knowledge evolution. My generation started with little education.

I was born in a Singapore under Japanese rule, educated by the British when a Senior Cambridge Certificate (today's "O" Level) was the hallmark of a well-educated person. Not many had a university degree.

As commerce and industrialisation took off in the 70's, the pieces fell into places.

The educated elite worked in the civil service, banks, trading houses and industries that blossomed in Jurong and other estates. From clerks and book-keepers they produced children who became technicians, engineers and lawyers.

Those who were unschooled became bus conductors, hawkers and messengers; others drove taxis. Every one was a piece of the wider picture.

The gap we talk so much today is not new. It already existed in the 70's and 80's but it was resolved by nature. Those without professional abilities operated small shops or became hawkers at Housing Board estates. Life went on. It wasn't so tough because the world did not need much skills then.

The bottom of the pile - petty criminals and triad members who were put out of action by government crackdowns - turned to illegal gambling (bookies), loan sharking and road or building sub-contracting to make a living. Career switch was easy. Today it is no longer so.

The Digital Gap

About a year ago I met an owner of a furniture shop, a small businessman in his 60s.

"Every one tells me I must learn the Internet. But my business is doing okay. It hasn't made me rich but I have raised two sons and sent them to polytechnic," he said.

I explained to him how E-Commerce would affect his company. One day his manufacturer - or a major importer - would put up a web-site to sell furniture directly to the public, bypassing the retailers (or middlemen), I said.

"They would give the Net buyers deep discounts and save on commissions for the middlemen," I said. Please be careful, I said. I could see his eyes roll but he remained silent.His son told me later it made an impression on him.

He now sees a change is needed. The old way of doing business is no longer an option.

The generation divide

The knowledge divide between the young and the old is likely to spill into politics - as is already happening in the West. Singapore can only mitigate - not avoid - it.

In a survey held several years ago, the majority of the public polled said it was the government's ("the taxpayers") duty to look after the aged, not the families.

It may go the way of the West - in parts of California and Britain - where retirees (especially the childless) want more facilities for themselves over better services for the community, like running tracks, they do not need.

In California, quarrels have broken out between groups representing parents and those bringing together retirees over whether tax-money should go to expanding, for example, school labs or building new escalators for the elderly.

And because of a fast ageing population, the senior citizens are winning. They have the bigger numbers.

Many of these issues surface in local elections. They want representatives to fight for their rights over those of everyone else. In some suburbs, they outnumber working adults four-to-three and often get their way.

In Britain, similar conflicts have landed in court after raising funds to get top lawyers.

Will Singapore go this way? Being Asian with different values, the process may be slower but it will happen. This will make MPs vulnerable to lobby groups and turn Parliament into an arena for such battles.

One Man Two Votes?

In 1994, when Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew suggested giving Singaporeans between 35 and 60 who were married with two children two votes, I thought it would not benefit his People's Action Party.

Instead it would help its opposition.

His rationale: Older people with a family tend to be more politically mature, less adventurous with their votes. In other words, the older population was more likely to support the government.

The idea was strongly opposed by the young who felt it would give one section of the community control over the rest. It might hold the country to ransom, one person argued.

While the seniors might have been loyal supporters of the PAP 10 years ago, they may not be 10 years from now; the young may be closer to it..

Seah Chiang Nee