Making Taiwan’s aging society productive

By June Tsai

In discussions on Taiwan’s rapidly aging society, the focus has been on the problems of growing old and the services older people deserve after a lifetime of contributing to society. Mature age employment has received little attention.

“The elderly are normally viewed as in need of long-term care, as a target group for social welfare programs,” Chou Wen-chi, associate professor of labor relations at National Chung Cheng University, said March 16 at a Taipei conference.

“However, 85 to 90 percent of our seniors are too healthy to sit idle.”

According to Chou, government polices targeting the aged have been directed at the 10 percent requiring long-term care, primarily because of the perception that people entering the advanced years of their lives are less capable of participating fully in society than their younger counterparts.

“It is believed the most blissful way for people to spend their elderly years is not to bother about working,” Chou said. But this misconception is obstructing the creation of an active, healthy and productive aging society, she added.

The idea of productive aging has been around since the 1990s, when Western scholars attempted to present a balanced view of the potential of older people, according to Yang Pai-shan, associate professor of social work at National Taiwan University.

Demographic changes, slowing economic growth, pressure on government finances and concern over national competitiveness have all combined to make productive aging an urgent issue, Yang said.

Taiwan is one of the fastest graying societies in the world, she pointed out, noting predictions that the country will be super-aged in 13 years, with 20 percent of the population 65 and above.

Senior citizens play important supporting roles in the family, community and workplace, but “in Taiwan their productive potential has been neglected to an astonishing degree,” she added.

Council of Labor Affairs statistics show that in 2011 the labor force participation rate of those 65 and older was 7.93 percent, in contrast to South Korea’s 29.4 percent, Japan’s 19.9 percent and Singapore’s 17.6 percent.

Governments in advanced countries have considered the sustainability of the labor force an important socio-economic issue, developing policies and earmarking funds to create environments in which the labor force of older adults is not wasted, Yang said.

The United Nations declared 1999 the International Year of Older Persons and promoted local action to deal with the problems of caring for the elderly and age discrimination exacerbating intergenerational conflict.

That same year, Taiwan also came out with a slogan envisioning an “ageless society,” but more than a decade later, the government still has no programs promoting the employment of older persons, Yang said. The labor participation rate of senior citizens remains just about what it was 10 years ago, she added.

When confronted with this issue, labor authorities tend to respond that unemployment among the middle-aged and aboriginals is a more urgent problem, she noted.

The nature of business in Taiwan is not friendly to elders, either. Yang’s target group research shows that employers count on a worker’s quantifiable productivity as a condition for hiring.

According to her analysis, in the country’s economic development from a labor-intensive, agricultural society to one dependent on original equipment manufacturing, there has been insufficient investment in employee education, making it hard for workers to prepare for retirement or re-employment.

“There is not much time left to respond to Taiwan’s coming super-aged era, so the government needs to come up with a comprehensive policy framework and integrated action to engage the elderly in social, economic and civic affairs,” Yang said.

“In our times, mature age employment is no longer a personal choice, but a matter of national development and industrial sustainability,” she stressed.

Chou argued that older people should not be viewed as merely a supplementary labor force. “Work helps elderly people both physically and spiritually, contributing to their well-being.”

One of her studies, targeting seniors over 65 in rural areas of Tainan City and urban parts of New Taipei City, found that the major reasons they worked were for an income and to keep active and healthy. They also wanted to stay socially connected and have a way to pass time.

In a 2008 survey of people between the ages of 45 and 64, conducted for the purpose of advising on government policy, 74 percent of those polled said they expected to depend on themselves in their advanced years if their pensions were insufficient.

If that were the case, more than 92 percent wanted to have full-time or part-time paid jobs.

“This shows that a high proportion of the population of those approaching retirement is willing to participate in the labor market,” Chou said. The problem now is what jobs are suitable for seniors.

Neighboring countries can provide examples, Chou noted. Japan began systematically launching “silver-haired talent centers” in 1995, the year it became an aged society, aiming to create community-based employment for senior citizens.

In South Korea, private-run employment service centers have been tasked with creating jobs for elderly people, mostly part-time and social service or education-related. “In 2007 alone, 160,000 such positions were created,” Chou said.

Communities, government agencies and schools could all count on seniors to fill jobs that require experience, patience and professional achievement, given their lifetime of both employment and hobbies, she said.

The work could be paid or voluntary, or even a form of continuing education, community based or for the government or private sector.

“Creating possibilities for mature age employment will force us to reconsider our definition of work,” Chou continued. The way people are required to work in Taiwan—constantly exhausting themselves rather than working and learning at the same time—is not conducive to either good health or self-achievement, she said.

Yang pointed out that community-based, cooperative enterprises that source the talent and labor of individuals of all ages could be an alternative to the profit-driven market economy.

“Government resources should be devoted to enhancing the well-being of every citizen, not to helping a few big companies in efforts to boost GDP figures.”

Yang believes the conventional idea of development will have to be changed to facilitate an age-free society in which the service and work of older people can be appreciated.

Thus productive aging is an issue not just for the CLA or the government, she said. “All citizens should become active participants in their own well-being, beginning by rethinking what it means to grow old.”

(This article first appeared in Taiwan Today April 7, 2012.)