Judging from the special address of the elderly, Singapore is a country that attaches great importance to the cause of providing for the aged. What are the unique practices in Singapore?
First, the government lightened the burden.
"Providing for the aged" is a worldwide problem. Due to the physical function of the elderly, it is necessary to invest a lot of money to protect the life and health of the elderly, and the amount of money is quite amazing.
Singapore mainly adopts "light welfare policy to reduce the burden of government pension"! You are not mistaken, it is to reduce the burden on the government! Seeing this, some friends are estimated to be amazed! No wonder there are so many old people in Singapore who are still working with wrinkles on their faces.
In Singapore, the most important old-age security is the Central Provident Fund (CPE), which is equivalent to the domestic "three insurances and one gold", but Singapore has a unified name. CPE is a compulsory deposit, which mainly provides comprehensive security services including medical care, education, old-age care and housing.
CPE is generally divided into three accounts:
① Ordinary accounts can be used for house purchase, CPE insurance, investment and children's education;
② Special account is used for providing for the aged and purchasing related financial products;
③ The medical insurance account is used to pay medical expenses.
Once a member reaches retirement age, the government will set up a new pension account for him. Eligible people can receive a monthly pension after the age of 65. After retirement, the account requires a minimum deposit. Those who meet the requirements can receive 65,438 yuan +0 per month after the age of 65, and the 200 yuan pension can last for 20 years. But often at retirement age, the elderly in Singapore are reluctant to retire! As I just said, walking on the streets of Singapore will find many elderly employees, which is absolutely different from that in China!
What is the reason?
① salary
The legal retirement age in Singapore is 62, and the re-employment retirement age is 65, but after these years, more and more elderly Singaporeans are still active in their jobs. Last year, more than 40% Singaporeans aged 65-69 were still working, more than 24% in 2006 16 percentage points. The increase in the employment of the elderly is due to many factors, such as government policies, tight job market and the extension of people's life expectancy and healthy age. Singapore stipulates that employees are re-employed between the ages of 62 and 65. At present, almost all employees over the age of 62 have achieved re-employment. In addition, as long as the job responsibilities of re-employed people remain unchanged, they have not even been cut their basic salary. In 20 14 years, 98% of the employed elderly over 62 years old did not receive a salary reduction, and 10% received a salary increase.
② Age
Life expectancy in Singapore will increase by three years every ten years. In 20 14 years, the average life expectancy of men in Singapore is 80.5 years and that of women is 84.9 years. Due to the extended life span, people are worried about whether there is enough money to continue to cope with retirement, because Singapore's pension function will take 20 years. With income, the elderly can be economically independent and independent of their children.
③ Encourage
The government itself has introduced policies to encourage enterprises to hire older employees. Singaporeans and permanent residents over the age of 60, their jobs include cleaners, machinery operators, service and sales personnel. If enterprises hire employees over 65, the government will also subsidize them. The median monthly income of employees over 60 increased from S $65,438+065,438+060 in 2006 to S $2065,438+05. In this way, enterprises feel that hiring older employees is actually very cost-effective. At the same time, because Singapore has tightened the inflow of foreign workers and the labor market is tight, employers have begun to seriously consider the issue of hiring older employees. Last year, 25% of Singaporeans over 65 had jobs. The proportion in 2006 was only 13.8%. It is predicted that the employment rate of the elderly will easily reach 30% in the next 10 year.
④ mentality
Many elderly people understand that employment, even part-time, can make the elderly interact with society. It is precisely because of this interaction that the elderly will not be confined to the family, but can enjoy a relatively rich old-age life. Moreover, delaying retirement is also caused by public opinion. With the gradual improvement of life expectancy, Singapore has repeatedly delayed the retirement age to 62. 20 1 1, employees can continue to work voluntarily after retirement, and the employer must provide a three-year re-employment contract for employees over 62 who meet the health conditions, which increases the flexibility of retirement age. At the same time, actively help middle-aged and elderly people improve their employability and encourage them to do what they can. Employees over the age of 40 can participate in the training free of charge, employees over the age of 50 can get the salary rewarded by the government after working for six months, and taxi drivers can work until they are 70 years old. It is worth noting that the leaders of the labor movement have recently repeatedly proposed to raise the upper limit of the re-employment age to 67, so that more people can be employed as long as possible, which represents the real public opinion in a certain sense.
In order to prevent the elderly from being discriminated against in the workplace, the government revised the regulations this year and announced that the legal provisions allowing employers to reduce wages for employees over 60 years old will be abolished from July 1 20 17. This provision was put forward by the Singapore government in 1999 when the retirement age was raised from 60 to 62. According to this regulation, employers can reduce their employees' 10% wages at most when extending their retirement years. The cancellation of this regulation paved the way for the elderly to re-enter the workplace.
Second, the pension plan.
Singapore has a total population of 5.47 million, and the proportion of people over 65 is close to 13%. In addition, due to the persistent low birth rate, the number of working citizens corresponding to an elderly person has dropped from 7.6 in 2004 to 5.2 in recent years. This means that there are currently less than six working citizens in Singapore who are responsible for supporting an elderly person, and the number of people supporting the elderly is still increasing, while the number of working citizens is decreasing and the contrast is increasing. However, relying solely on the government to provide old-age care will obviously cause a greater financial burden. Therefore, the Singapore government has launched a series of policies to help and improve the quality of life of the elderly, including the cash purchase subsidy scheme, encouraging families whose children live with their parents to participate in the purchase subsidy scheme for the elderly, and building apartments for the elderly.
Cash-out of HDB means that residents who own HDB can get extra income every month through deed tax repurchase program, exchange big houses for small houses and rent HDB, mainly for residents with financial difficulties. In recent years, the government has been advocating and emphasizing the traditional virtues of respecting the elderly and loving the young. As a welfare unit of local residents, it specially designed units suitable for generations to live under the same roof during the design and construction, and gave preferential treatment on the purchase price. This kind of apartment is similar to two houses that have already opened houses. They are connected by the living room, and the two households are separated and combined, so that the elders and the younger generation can live in harmony. In addition, for families with children who are willing to live close to their parents, the government will provide up to S $40,000 in cash relief when purchasing government apartments. Singles who buy a house to live with their parents can also enjoy S $20,000 provident fund housing allowance.
It is not enough to solve the problem of providing for the aged, but the quality of life of the elderly is a more concerned topic. In fact, Singapore's social facilities for the elderly are relatively perfect, which can be said to be one of the countries most suitable for the daily life of the elderly. For example, most buses can get on and off in wheelchairs, and drivers and passengers will patiently help elderly people with mobility difficulties get on and off; Houses in each block are equipped with activity areas for the elderly and children, as well as food courts and bus stops, so that owners can eat downstairs, and a capped green corridor has been built from the door to the station, which is convenient for residents to travel in rainy days and greatly reduces the slip accidents of the elderly. 2065438+In March 2006, Singapore launched the "Happy Aging Plan" for the elderly. The government will invest S $3 billion to promote more than 70 projects, covering medical care, retirement, employment, housing, transportation and other fields 12.
Judging from the contents disclosed in the plan, the Singapore government has indeed done a good job in caring for the elderly. The new plan, which first appeared in the full report, includes extending the opening and closing time of subway doors by 2 seconds to 6 seconds during off-peak hours, so that the elderly can have more time to get in and out of the train. In addition, bus stops and taxi stands will be replaced with seats with armrests to help the elderly get up. With the help of existing facilities and community networks, the People's Association will provide medical services for the elderly under the Jianle project, and promote health education and learning, with the goal of establishing a Jianle center in each community.
This attention to detail is also reflected in the facilities of the Laoling apartment built by the government in recent years. For example, add handrails on both sides of stairs and corridors, and all places that change direction and height are indicated with conspicuous colors. Considering the hunchback of the elderly, the positions of switches, doorbells, door and window handles and other facilities should be appropriately lowered. Old people's eyesight and hearing are generally not very good, so the illumination of apartment rooms is twice that of ordinary houses, the words on various switches such as gas are very big, and the volume of alarm system is also increased appropriately. In addition, every Laoling apartment has a neighborhood contact station, where the elderly can come to participate in various singing, reading and other activities, or chat with each other to kill time.
For those who don't live in Laoling apartment, there are people's clubs, community liaison offices and entertainment centers in every constituency in Singapore. These venues are funded by the government and bear part of the operating expenses. They regularly hold cultural, social and leisure activities, and provide services such as health check-up, information consultation and daily care. In addition, there are day care and various social pension institutions in Singapore. For families who have no time to take care of the elderly and children, Singapore has set up a "Trinity Family Center", which organically combines the old-age care center with the nursery, so that the "elderly children" and "children" live together. Centralized management of the old and young not only meets the needs of social development, solves the worries of young people, but also meets people's spiritual needs and enhances interpersonal communication.