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Asia, a rapidly growing region with some of the youngest populations in | :00:00. | :00:16. | |
the world. But Asia is also growing old, fast. It is estimated that 200 | :00:17. | :00:20. | |
million people will enter the ranks of the elderly in the next 15 years. | :00:21. | :00:26. | |
Many of Asia's economies are still developing. How will governments and | :00:27. | :00:31. | |
businesses cope with this new ageing demographic? | :00:32. | :00:55. | |
Welcome to Talking Business. I am Karishma Vaswani in Hanoi. One of | :00:56. | :01:02. | |
the oldest cities in Asia and the capital of being an. This country | :01:03. | :01:06. | |
has a booming birth rate with one of the youngest populations in the | :01:07. | :01:10. | |
region, but it has been growing old at a faster rate than many other | :01:11. | :01:15. | |
nations. This is not just the Vietnamese problem. Currently, 5% is | :01:16. | :01:22. | |
above the age of 65. That figure is expected to rise by 70% in the next | :01:23. | :01:33. | |
15 years, and that will cost Asian economies some $20 trillion. Here is | :01:34. | :01:35. | |
a look at the breakdown. According to the World Bank, the wealthiest | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
countries in Asia Japan, South Korea and Singapore are currently the most | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
aged with 14% of their populations over 65. Japan will reach super aged | :01:44. | :01:53. | |
status soonest with 30% of its population in the elderly bracket by | :01:54. | :01:58. | |
2030. And South Korea may see its GDP shrink by as much as 8%, 2026, | :01:59. | :02:06. | |
simply due to a smaller workforce. Middle income countries like China, | :02:07. | :02:12. | |
the nun, Indonesia and Thailand are not far behind, according to the | :02:13. | :02:18. | |
Asia-Pacific risk centre, about 20% of its populations are expected age | :02:19. | :02:23. | |
out of the workforce by 2020 -- Vietnam. The biggest concern is | :02:24. | :02:27. | |
these economies will grow old before they grow rich. Let's look at one | :02:28. | :02:32. | |
example, Singapore. It may be one of the wealthiest countries in Asia but | :02:33. | :02:36. | |
it is one of the smallest in terms of size and population. One of the | :02:37. | :02:41. | |
ways it is trying to tackle this issue is by extending reproductive | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
life span of its people. It is not everyday you a second chance. And | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
even more rare if you are 67 years old. But that is exactly what | :02:52. | :02:58. | |
happened to this man, known to his colleagues simply as uncle Chu. The | :02:59. | :03:09. | |
name is a sign of respect but it is also indicating he two decades older | :03:10. | :03:16. | |
than his colleagues. At our age having a job makes us feel wanted | :03:17. | :03:21. | |
and it is great to keep ourselves occupied by working. This is one of | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
the few Singaporean businesses which is trying to integrate the elderly | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
into its workforce. Many Singapore countries are reluctant to hire an | :03:31. | :03:36. | |
older employee. The typical stereotypes of older people is they | :03:37. | :03:39. | |
are more expensive than younger employees or that they are slow and | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
they don't learn any more and maybe they are not physically healthy and | :03:44. | :03:49. | |
fit. So through the years we have addressed these and of course it | :03:50. | :03:56. | |
takes two parties. You have to have the employee and the employer to | :03:57. | :03:59. | |
contribute to this and I think we have made a lot of progress. | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
Singapore is beginning to understand it needs to address this problem | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
now. Currently, the elderly make up some 11% of the country's population | :04:11. | :04:14. | |
but that figure is expected to rise to 20% in the next 15 years, and | :04:15. | :04:19. | |
Singapore is growing old at a faster rate than many of its neighbours. | :04:20. | :04:24. | |
Singapore's government estimates that ten years ago, 50% of the | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
elderly were employed. That has now jumped to 67% which means two thirds | :04:31. | :04:35. | |
of the elderly are in some form of employment, but officials admit this | :04:36. | :04:39. | |
is still a work in progress. When we compare it to some of the more | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
developed countries which are quite good at maximising the potential of | :04:46. | :04:48. | |
older workers, I think we are quite comparable but we believe there is | :04:49. | :04:53. | |
still an upside. We think we are in a good trajectory that there is | :04:54. | :04:56. | |
still work to be done, particularly when we think about the demographic | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
trends. It was not that long ago that Singapore was still a young | :05:02. | :05:06. | |
country. The citystate went from third World to first in just a few | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
short decades. It was that economic success which led in part to fewer | :05:12. | :05:17. | |
women having babies, and as the population shrinks, Singapore is | :05:18. | :05:21. | |
counting on its elderly to ensure that the next-generation's future | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
remains intact. Well, governments in the region have been recognising | :05:26. | :05:30. | |
this issue over the last few years. Recently, Hanoi played host to the | :05:31. | :05:37. | |
ageing Asia conference which allowed governments and representatives of | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
civil society groups to mull over the scale of the problem and the | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
challenges facing Asian economies in the years ahead. I am joined by some | :05:46. | :05:51. | |
of the key speakers at this conference. We have Philip O'Keefe | :05:52. | :05:57. | |
from the world bank. The president and director of a foundation and an | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
expert in this field who has helped to BME 's government with strategies | :06:03. | :06:06. | |
to deal with some of these issues. Thank you for joining me on Talking | :06:07. | :06:12. | |
Business. Philip, what is the scale of the problem or the challenges | :06:13. | :06:16. | |
which are facing Asian economies when it comes to dealing with | :06:17. | :06:25. | |
ageing? Currently have in the East Asian Pacific a number of people | :06:26. | :06:33. | |
aged over 65 and that will rise to half a billion people by 24 two. | :06:34. | :06:40. | |
This is the most rapidly ageing region then we have seen in history. | :06:41. | :06:44. | |
There will clearly be many more older people in the future. That | :06:45. | :06:48. | |
creates opportunities and challenges. Some of the challenges | :06:49. | :06:56. | |
is it will create new dynamic pressures in the Labour market. The | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
biggest challenge for the government is the fiscal challenge and the risk | :07:02. | :07:06. | |
of pensions. Marianne, Patsy can jump in. The scale of the problem in | :07:07. | :07:13. | |
the future seems quite stark, but are there any particular countries | :07:14. | :07:21. | |
which stand out as having understood the challenges particularly well? I | :07:22. | :07:29. | |
think across Asia, as Phillips said, some countries clearly have a big | :07:30. | :07:38. | |
issue and they are very aware of it. Singapore where I work has taken | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
major steps in recent years because we are one of the fastest ageing | :07:44. | :07:47. | |
regions and we feel the pressure is with the health system and the | :07:48. | :07:52. | |
Labour market. They have to make some changes as well. Mr Long, here | :07:53. | :07:58. | |
in Vietnam, I know you have done a lot of work with the government and | :07:59. | :08:02. | |
the nam is one of the countries when you'd typically think about it, it | :08:03. | :08:08. | |
has a young demographic, it is a very fast-growing economy, it is not | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
necessarily a country you would necessarily associate with having an | :08:15. | :08:21. | |
ageing problem? In the past 50 years, we have a very big | :08:22. | :08:32. | |
demographic change. In 30 years we will become an ageing country. That | :08:33. | :08:42. | |
is while it we are dealing with economic growth as well as an ageing | :08:43. | :08:48. | |
population. What I am trying to understand is how did we get to this | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
stage? Philip, can you explain to me, for a region as fast-growing as | :08:55. | :08:58. | |
Asia is, how did we get to this point where we are now facing such a | :08:59. | :09:03. | |
stark reality when it comes to ageing societies in the future? All | :09:04. | :09:09. | |
of the world and historically, as countries get richer, fertility | :09:10. | :09:13. | |
rates fall, winning's education rates go up, they fall further. This | :09:14. | :09:21. | |
region has gone through a rapid period of growth. Fertility rates | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
here between 1950 and the present fell more than an additional child | :09:26. | :09:30. | |
to the rest of the world. So as a result, you are well below | :09:31. | :09:34. | |
replacement rate. It was that falling fertility rates which got us | :09:35. | :09:38. | |
to this point so quickly. That is the key thing, the pace of change. | :09:39. | :09:45. | |
The transition from ageing to aged society in the way democracy is | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
define it, took 115 years in France, 70 years in the United States and | :09:51. | :09:55. | |
will take 18 years in Vietnam, Korea and Thailand. Dealing with the | :09:56. | :10:01. | |
things that brings on and the pace which it brings it on and the need | :10:02. | :10:06. | |
for social and cultural and policy change is really quite a big | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
challenge for governments. I think the flip side of the coin is people | :10:12. | :10:14. | |
are living longer. They are living longer because the health care | :10:15. | :10:19. | |
system is good to keep people alive but not necessarily healthier. And | :10:20. | :10:23. | |
of course we all known now that even developing countries, before it was | :10:24. | :10:26. | |
infectious disease which killed them and relatively young, but now they | :10:27. | :10:32. | |
live long with chronic diseases like high blood pressure and by Beatties. | :10:33. | :10:38. | |
Thing is that if you manage it well, you are fine. But if you have | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
hypertension, you are smoking and you don't take your medication you | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
will have a stroke. Diabetes, this is one of the areas with the highest | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
rates of diabetes because of the changing diet and lifestyle but we | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
have not had the change in primary care support so older people can | :10:58. | :11:02. | |
prevent a stroke or amputation or kidney failure. Those things put the | :11:03. | :11:08. | |
burden is on individuals lives as well as the political work and the | :11:09. | :11:12. | |
care they need from their community and the government. Hold that | :11:13. | :11:16. | |
thought. Some of these issues are also being dealt with in other parts | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
of the world. We have a light-hearted look at some of these | :11:22. | :11:25. | |
challenges. There are plenty of post-retirement | :11:26. | :11:29. | |
cliches which I could use in my talking point on ageing, golf, bowls | :11:30. | :11:34. | |
and bowels, but there are a little low rent for me. Yachting or at | :11:35. | :11:40. | |
least standing in front of yachts is more my style which is why I am | :11:41. | :11:48. | |
standing at a marina outside Dublin. One thing is for certain, I have no | :11:49. | :11:54. | |
plans for retirement, literally, no plans, no pension. My only plan is | :11:55. | :11:58. | |
to have children and hope they will get on with me and support me in my | :11:59. | :12:03. | |
old age. But that is so far-off that I have to work for the time being. | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
You will not see me with the wind in my sales and a glass of wine in my | :12:08. | :12:14. | |
hands, sadly. But you cannot be sad because that is counter-productive. | :12:15. | :12:16. | |
Apparently, being positive is the key to. Perceptions of ageing, how | :12:17. | :12:32. | |
you see yourself ageing influences longer turn your brain ageing and | :12:33. | :12:34. | |
physical ageing. But this is not just theoretical happy clappy stuff. | :12:35. | :12:37. | |
It could lead to some policy changes on the road ahead. In Ireland if you | :12:38. | :12:42. | |
are working in a public service you must retire at 65. Very often these | :12:43. | :12:48. | |
days people are reaching their maximum capacity at that age and | :12:49. | :12:55. | |
carry a whole lot of institutional richness and history with them. So | :12:56. | :12:59. | |
reflections on policy retirement ageing is very important. But | :13:00. | :13:03. | |
eventually, the stand-up has to sit down and who will pay for the yachts | :13:04. | :13:08. | |
when we are too decrepit to earn money? I think what is key from the | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
economics is with people living longer and longer, people will have | :13:14. | :13:18. | |
to spend more time working. They will have to spend time beyond the | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
standard retirement age working but I think we have to think of creative | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
ways of doing this. So I don't have to rush my career at all. It looks | :13:28. | :13:32. | |
like there is such a long road ahead I will be doing stand-up until well | :13:33. | :13:39. | |
into my old age. What you learn is many people would like to work | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
beyond the standard retirement age of 65 but they don't necessarily | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
want to be working at the highest level of corporate responsibility | :13:48. | :13:50. | |
they have ever had. There are some older people who would like the | :13:51. | :13:54. | |
option of moving down the career pyramid but we tend not to | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
facilitate that. We have heard a lot about the challenges of an ageing | :13:59. | :14:04. | |
population but what about the opportunities? What can companies | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
sell to an older age group apart from retirement style hats? | :14:10. | :14:14. | |
Tailoring availability of new technologies, new devices, new | :14:15. | :14:22. | |
consumer goods to older persons is something that the corporate world | :14:23. | :14:27. | |
is waking up to but maybe not as fast as local populations are | :14:28. | :14:34. | |
raging. In an ideal world I would finish my talking point by sailing | :14:35. | :14:39. | |
off into the Dublin Bay, my life's work done, ready to take my ease but | :14:40. | :14:45. | |
this is not an ideal world. The ageing population and ageing world | :14:46. | :14:49. | |
has some real-world problems and these will need concrete solutions | :14:50. | :14:53. | |
from public policymakers and corporations alike. | :14:54. | :14:59. | |
That was our comedy consultant there. If you liked that, you can | :15:00. | :15:04. | |
see more of his material on our website. Back to the discussion. | :15:05. | :15:12. | |
Early on, we were talking about some of the problems or challenges with | :15:13. | :15:19. | |
regards to the scale of what is affecting ageing societies in Asia. | :15:20. | :15:23. | |
What about how business can contribute in terms of policies or | :15:24. | :15:27. | |
incentives with regards to hiring older workers. What do you think, | :15:28. | :15:33. | |
Philip, are you seeing some success stories? It is beginning in the | :15:34. | :15:40. | |
oldest countries. Across the world, one of the biggest challenges is | :15:41. | :15:45. | |
employer attitudes to hiring older workers. In Japan and Singapore | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
you're seeing the beginnings of this, a mixture of government | :15:51. | :15:54. | |
incentives and responsibility from employers. In Japan and Korea, they | :15:55. | :16:00. | |
have the longest working lives of any country in the OECD. Whether it | :16:01. | :16:05. | |
is people's attitudes or employers attitudes, there is a great degree | :16:06. | :16:10. | |
of success. Maryanne, I know you do a lot of work with older people in | :16:11. | :16:14. | |
Singapore, what are some of the issues they have said when they have | :16:15. | :16:22. | |
tried to get re-employed or back into the workforce? It is difficult | :16:23. | :16:27. | |
because changing the culture of the employers is hard. The other side is | :16:28. | :16:30. | |
you have to think out of that box and think what work opportunities | :16:31. | :16:39. | |
are presented. Nowadays, people are getting very savvy with the digital | :16:40. | :16:45. | |
economy. And the whole boot economy is wide open. It could be older | :16:46. | :16:51. | |
people starting business or young people with platforms which allows | :16:52. | :16:53. | |
older people with skills and products and services to find the | :16:54. | :17:00. | |
marketplace -- the goober economy. I think it gives them flexibility, | :17:01. | :17:04. | |
choice and the option of people working when they want and not when | :17:05. | :17:08. | |
they want. There are many opportunities. We like to have | :17:09. | :17:14. | |
leisure and have good food travel and many things. But we need | :17:15. | :17:18. | |
housing, transportation, fashion, we should look at what we can provide | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
for them. I think people are not yet recognising that. Some older people | :17:23. | :17:29. | |
are not wealthy and have limited purchasing power. But an increasing | :17:30. | :17:36. | |
number, looking at people, I am 61, so there are groups of people who | :17:37. | :17:44. | |
are having purchasing power of different variability. The marketing | :17:45. | :17:49. | |
people should look at them as consumers. That is a really | :17:50. | :17:55. | |
interesting point. Mr Long, does that work in countries where the | :17:56. | :17:59. | |
income level has not reached a certain stage yet or people have not | :18:00. | :18:04. | |
moved into the middle-class yet where the demographic of the aged or | :18:05. | :18:09. | |
ageing is not an attractive demographic at that point in time to | :18:10. | :18:15. | |
start selling to? Vietnam is another interesting story. We have an ageing | :18:16. | :18:25. | |
demographic. We are struggling how to keep the job for older people if | :18:26. | :18:32. | |
they want to and at the same time, how to have jobs for young people. | :18:33. | :18:37. | |
And recognising in some sectors like education and health, if we stop | :18:38. | :18:41. | |
people working from very early, it means we have to take that 20 or 30 | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
years to train get same human resource. And in the education | :18:48. | :18:53. | |
sector where I am working now, we have a flexible retirement age for | :18:54. | :18:59. | |
the people. They can stop working at 64 men and 55 for women, but that | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
the government can extend about ten years for the people who really want | :19:04. | :19:08. | |
to continue working. Philip, let's look at some of the more developed | :19:09. | :19:12. | |
economies in Asia and how they have dealt with the issue of getting | :19:13. | :19:15. | |
private sector to help out with looking after the aged. In Japan and | :19:16. | :19:23. | |
Korea, some of the challenges they face, as I understand it, they could | :19:24. | :19:28. | |
bring more people in to look after ageing societies, but they are | :19:29. | :19:32. | |
reluctant to do this. So what do they then do? It is a good question. | :19:33. | :19:39. | |
The first thing they moved on it is a good question. The first thing | :19:40. | :19:41. | |
removed was the financing side. Korea and Japan introduced public | :19:42. | :19:44. | |
long care insurance. The first step they did and what many countries are | :19:45. | :19:48. | |
thinking about how to do it now, it was getting finance available. The | :19:49. | :19:54. | |
second thing is, particularly at lower end care, what do you do? | :19:55. | :19:58. | |
Japan has tried with Filipino nurses over the years but language | :19:59. | :20:05. | |
problems, other issues but particularly the language was a big | :20:06. | :20:09. | |
issue. In China, until now you have been able to draw the younger | :20:10. | :20:14. | |
workforce from the rural areas to the coastal areas so you had | :20:15. | :20:19. | |
internal migration partly addressing the issue. And then there is the | :20:20. | :20:24. | |
commercial sector itself. Thailand has created a niche for itself in | :20:25. | :20:29. | |
medical tourism and it is able to draw people from as far as the old | :20:30. | :20:34. | |
as Europe but particularly in the region, the older population. That | :20:35. | :20:42. | |
is a market Thailand has brought up -- built up and is developing. Mary | :20:43. | :20:49. | |
Ann Tsao, you are talking about how important it is to keep the elderly | :20:50. | :20:53. | |
healthy, but when you talk about business opportunities for elderly | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
people to become entrepreneurs, are their systems in place currently | :20:58. | :21:00. | |
from what you are seeing to make it easy for them to do that? In | :21:01. | :21:07. | |
Singapore for example, one of the key investments the government has | :21:08. | :21:11. | |
made is access to retraining. We have had some success recruiting | :21:12. | :21:18. | |
women who have not been working for a long time. They do not have many | :21:19. | :21:23. | |
skills. We have to make the classroom training conducive for | :21:24. | :21:28. | |
them. The fees are highly subsidised and we are able to get some of those | :21:29. | :21:33. | |
women back in the workforce. They want to work and save money for | :21:34. | :21:41. | |
themselves as they grow older. It is not wide open yet but I can see the | :21:42. | :21:44. | |
system being changed so I am optimistic! Key distinctive in | :21:45. | :21:53. | |
developing Asia, for those who are working after 60, 70% are in | :21:54. | :21:59. | |
self-employment already. It is not like Japan or Singapore or career | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
was in the past. A lot of that may be in agriculture so it is no | :22:05. | :22:09. | |
productivity but the kind of animal spirits of entrepreneurialism are | :22:10. | :22:12. | |
already there. How would you make that more productive is the | :22:13. | :22:16. | |
question, whether it is training or access to credit. In a lot of | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
countries people cannot get access to credit for their businesses | :22:21. | :22:24. | |
beyond a certain age. That does not make sense. There are some policy | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
issues which need addressing. On that note, thank you for joining us. | :22:30. | :22:39. | |
Next week, Tanya Beckett will be looking at the anti immigrant | :22:40. | :22:45. | |
sentiment. Thank you for joining us, I am Karishma Vaswani. | :22:46. | :22:51. |