Turning Ageing Problem Into An Opportunity

My presentation to the Forum could have been as follows had it not because of the 3-min time constraint:-

Thank AFPPD for inviting us three to join the forum at Ho Chi Minh City. The discussion and the inspection of the Intergenerational Self Help Centres at Ben Tre city yesterday which was very inspiring and useful. Self help in the sense that it is of mutual assistance in a community is always an effective way to prevent as well as resolving problems. At the same time, it saves a lot of money in manning the operation. I will bring this idea back to HK for our study and see if we can also modify our elderly care system accordingly.

Before talking about our own elderly care system, let me give you some background information:-

1)we have currently 7.3m population, out of which we have 1.1m over the age of 65 representing 15%; by 2021, 19.9%; by 2031, 28%; by 2042, 32% with the projection of 2.8m out of 8.47m;

2)for 2017/18, we spend around 20% of our budgetary expenses which represents $73.3bn on social welfare and amongst which, $9.5bn(13% of the $73.3bn) for the elderly care;

Talking about ageing problem, it is not just a domestic problem confined to a particular country, it is becoming a universal one. We need to tackle it with wisdom and humanity.

As said there is “no one size fits all approach”, we also search along the way and we borrow the experiences from overseas. At the moment, we provide a multi pillars based safety net/security system to look after our elderly, i.e., 1)MPF; 2)social security measures such as cash in the form of CSSA, OALA; accommodation in the form housing/elderly homes; community caring benefits in the form of vouchers enabling them to purchase the medical or residence services in HK or in the mainland; 3) low costs medical assistance via the Hospital authority; 4) encouraging utilisation of own assets of the silvery-hair group.

We are trying hard to maximise the benefits and on the other hand minimise the wastage of our elderly care scheme. Home care base is being focused on but it is not easy to achieve due to shortage of space at home etc. So those reaching the age beyond 70 seems to be an inevitable case of getting more and even intensive cares from the community, society and government which can’t really be ignored.

How to seek for greater improvements to our present scheme is not a philosophical question to ask. It is a real issue that we need to explore.

There may be a way out. To encourage and mobilise the silvery hair group at the age of 60-70 to rejoin the workforce. But we would bear in mind of the following considerations:-

1. it has to be of a motivation and incentive driven program, i.e. To work half time of a full time job but to receive 2/3 of the normal pay or 150% of the statutory minimum wages whichever is the higher; no need to pay for income tax; half of the salary be received by the worker and the remaining goes into the OALA fund earmarked for the use of the particular individuals after reaching the age of 70 for their own use in health care medicine and residence;

2. Those who employ the silvery hair group to work for them will enjoy a bonus tax deduction rate which is 20% more than the usual allowance rate;

3. No sick allowance be payable to the silvery if sick; no extra burden to the employers, but the individuals concern can still take the social benefits as usual.

In conclusion, we should not see ageing problem as a problem per se, we can, only if we are willing to, make use of our wisdom to turn it around and change it into an opportunity, hopefully at last we all will benefit from it together.

Ps the organiser has subsequently requested for my script and I tell them to down load it from my FB.