Social And Health Challenges Of Ageing In Singapore

摘要

While the life expectancy of Singaporeans is increasing, studies show that the average person is unhealthy for about a decade of their life. This does not bode well for the Government who has called for older Singaporeans to continue to work longer - to enhance financial security for their golden years. Better empirical-based policy-makings are required to meet their needs. Assoc Prof Angelique Chan, a sociologist from the Department of Sociology, presented the findings from a research by NUS, on the health and social challenges of population ageing in Singapore to experts from the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) - a network of 10 of the world's leading universities such as the Oxford, Yale and the University of Tokyo. The workshop held in June 2008, was jointly organised by the 1ARU, the Asia Research Institute (ARI) in NUS and the Health cluster within the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. According to 2006 data from the World Health Organisation, a Singaporean man has a life expectancy of 78 years but a healthy life expectancy of 69 years.