Hong Kong’s elderly will have to make their peace with working till they drop
- By raising the age cut-off for welfare payments to the elderly, the government was trying to address the reality of our ageing society. However, a more comprehensive approach that recognises the skills the elderly have to offer would be preferable
The Economist magazine reported last week that, for the first time in history, the Earth has more people over 65 than under five. This trend has profound implications for public policy everywhere. However, politicians globally have tended to address the consequences on an incremental basis rather than comprehensively.
In Hong Kong, we had an example of this recently when the government raised the age cut-off from 60 to 65 for those eligible to receive elderly Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) payments.
People not eligible for the elderly CSSA payment would still qualify for the adult CSSA scheme, with additional means tests. Nobody need die of hunger.
While Lam is still working in a very demanding job past the age of 60, others (I am one) are still working at 70. The taxi driver who took me home the other night proudly announced he was over 80. There are many such people in our community.
Faculties do deteriorate with the passage of time and, for most people, energy levels drop with age. So we may not all be able to stay on in our current positions forever. But that is no excuse for writing everyone off as being economically useless.
A firefighter may not be the best person to rescue people from a burning building past the age of 40, but he is certainly capable of examining building plans and inspecting means of escape well past 60. With suitable retraining, we should be looking to get the best out of everyone.
In the pre-industrial era, among those that lived by agriculture, agile youngsters may have been better equipped to do the planting and harvesting, but older members of the family knew best what crops to plant, and where and when to harvest.
In earlier times, among hunters, it was maybe for the young bucks to chase the prey, but for older members to know the trails where target animals were more likely to be found and the water holes they were more likely to frequent. Everyone contributed something to the survival effort until they were no longer capable of doing so. And then they died.
No one is suggesting a return to those rather grim times. But we have to be realistic. The old idea that people can just put their feet up and not contribute to the community for decades after a working life of 30 or 40 years is dead. While this may have been the ideal in wealthy countries for a generation or two after the second world war, we now live in different times.
We can look back nostalgically on those old days, if we wish, as a kind of golden era. But they are gone. In future, only the very wealthy will be able to live a life of idleness in old age if they so choose. For the rest of us, it’s going to be work till you drop. Get used to it.
Mike Rowse is the CEO of Treloar Enterprises. [email protected]