In Singapore, where life expectancy is soaring, the elderly are encouraged to exchange retirement for arduous jobs that often pay badly – yet many of its citizens, including Wong Kuan Ying, are only too keen to oblige

At first glance, Wong Kuan Ying looks like a typical Singaporean boss, with her smart, full-length trousers and impeccable posture, even at the end of a nine-hour shift. Her colleagues in Singapore’s West Coast Market Square food court are dressed more casually, in shorts and T-shirts. Some of them look past the working age: you avert your eyes from their tired knees; they avert their eyes when you thank them.

Kuan Ying tells me she is 72 but she doesn’t look it. Each day when she gets home, however, she has to unscrew her right leg from below the knee. Acute diabetes has left her missing the lower part of one leg, and all the toes from her other foot.

Some days, she says, the prosthesis feels like a hard, heavy stone biting into the soft wrinkled folds of her stump. Even on the days it fits well, it is a relief to take it off and let her skin breathe. “I am much better now,” she says. “In the early days, I would hold this stump and cry.”

Kuan Ying’s job could have easily have gone to a younger, stronger person – or a foreign worker willing to work for less. But the Singaporean government is actively pushing its elderly to continue working.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kuan Ying’s prosthetic leg is a result of her acute diabetes. Photograph: Toh Ting Wei

In 2012, it introduced the “policy of re-employment” – to encourage citizens to continue working beyond the official retirement age of 62, while giving employers the flexibility to decide who they wished to retain, and the terms of their retention. The “minimum” re-employment age was set at 65 in 2012, and in 2017 it will be raised to 67 – though people can work beyond that if both parties agree. The country has, meanwhile, tightened its foreign worker intake to allow more residents to get jobs.

The main reason for this is what Singapore anxiously calls the “silver tsunami”: by 2030, one in five people in the city-state will be over 60. Added to this, Singaporeans have the third-highest life expectancy in the world, at 82.7 years.

At 10pm in the market the dinner crowd has gone home, and the last of the stores are closing up. Only men drinking beer in the open remain. It’s take-it-easy hour, but for Kuan Ying there is still plenty to do: clean the dishes, stack them away, clean the counters, count the cash. If someone asks for a coffee or tea, she pours it out from the long-spouted kettles with the flourish of a juggler.

The drinks counter is the busiest among the food stalls: in the Singapore heat, you always need a drink. Kuan Ying is the barista, cashier and keeper of the stall, and her work never ceases. Singaporeans are reported to work the longest hours in the world, averaging 2,402 hours a year; Kuan Ying clocks up around 3,042 hours annually.

Her son William has told her not to work like this: 28 days a month, S$1,600 (£900) in total, no overtime. She should be watching TV at home, he says. But she is grateful for the job; it staves off the desolation of empty afternoons, helps put away a little every month in case her leg gives trouble, and eases the financial pressure on her son. At S$2,000, his salary is slightly higher than hers, but he has to cover the mortgage and utility bills.

When I sought to interview older workers in Singapore, most declined. A few spoke politely but briefly. Kuan Ying is the only one who invited me home and told me her story.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A cobbler fixes a pair of shoes. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Her diabetes struck suddenly. Initially, she went to see the doctor about recurrent pain in her feet – in her job as a cook at a university, she stood for several hours of the day and presumed it was simply exhaustion. She was rushed into surgery; a toe was removed.

It was the first of several such operations (she doesn’t keep count because it upsets her) and it was a shock. She stayed home for seven months. What would happen to the mortgage? Would she ever leave the house again?

‘Stingy nanny state’

Singapore has historically disliked the idea of welfare. The iconic former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, dismissed it as an attitude: “welfarism” – the tendency to sponge off the state. “Cradle-to-grave welfarism blunted the ambition of many budding entrepreneurs,” he said.

The country has tended to believe instead in the principle of individual responsibility, with the occasional small helping hand. The Economist memorably christened it the “stingy nanny state”.



The stingy nanny has softened a bit, however. “In recent years, many of our policies have certainly become more inclusive, compassionate and aimed at helping the poor get a better shot at life,” says Radha Basu, an award-winning former journalist with the Straits Times, Singapore’s largest English newspaper. “We now have a universal medical insurance scheme, and the social safety nets have been strengthened.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest In 2015, 12% of Singapore’s workforce was over 60 – with a concentration of elderly workers in low-wage work. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The re-employment policy and its accompanying incentives have increased the proportion of older citizens working: in 2006, 5.5% of the workforce was above the age of 60; by 2015, this had risen to 12%. But there is a worrying concentration of elderly workers in low-wage work, such as the cleaning, security and sales sectors.

Singapore does not have a minimum wage; it categorises S$1,900 per month and below as “low-wage work”. According to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Manpower in 2015, 73% of cleaners and labourers were above the age of 50. Among plant and machine operators and assemblers, it was 66%.

As a result, it has become increasingly common to see older workers like Kuan Ying doing difficult physical work. These are the things tourists notice quickly, and sometimes mention in online forums. “What’s wrong with old people working?” many Singaporeans ask in return. After all, they earn an independent income, and they stay active.

When Kuan Ying returned to work after her toe was removed, some of her doughtiness returned. The money paid some bills, the loneliness was soaked up, sleep came swiftly again. She bought firm, strong shoes and avoided eating things that would exacerbate her diabetes.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Many Singaporeans believe giving the elderly an independent income is the most dignified option. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Then, two and a half years ago, her right leg had to be amputated from just below the knee, leaving behind a crumpled pink stump and hollowing out a lifetime of savings. While she spent 40 days in hospital, she tried to remind herself of how far she had come: an unschooled single mother who raised her two children, William and Diana, on her own, looked after her dependent mother until her death, and bought her own house. She could get over this.

Some months ago she secured a job in the market at the foot of her housing complex. She would no longer have to take the bus to the mall, and the minutes she saved felt like a gift. She didn’t mind that she didn’t get the mandatory day off every week, or a printed pay slip, or that her salary was low.

Earlier this year, she received a Pioneer Generation Card, which allowed her to buy a new prosthesis for only S$400. The fit is better than the first one, she says, gentler on the stump. Without the subsidy, it would have cost her S$1,300 – an unaffordable sum.

The Pioneer Generation Benefits, introduced in 2015, is the PAP government’s most generous elderly care initiative, offering handsome health subsidies to all those born in 1950 and before. But many among this “pioneer generation” speak no English and have little formal education. As Singapore’s economy has evolved past manufacturing into an economy of highly skilled services, there is little place for them other than on the lowest rungs.

Which cities have the oldest residents? Read more

Nonetheless, every one of the half-dozen pioneers I talk to says they are happy to still be working and earning. As an outsider, this can be hard to understand: at the end of a lifetime of working, why would anybody want to undertake work that involves hard, physical labour at the bottom of the chain of command?

But many Singaporeans believe this is the reasonable culmination of an ageing society. Indeed, once you get past the unsettling image of frail people doing manual labour, they believe this is the more dignified option – keeping the elderly active and giving them an independent income.



“There is plenty of help available to those who need it, but nobody goes to you offering handouts,” says Alan John, a former deputy editor of The Straits Times. “People have to seek help themselves and it can be hard to navigate the system; to know who to ask, where to go, what forms to fill out.”



When I relay this comment to Kuan Ying, she motions urgently to our translator. “Tell her,” she says, “I’ve had my fill of [those forms]. I applied for help after my amputation – nothing. I made 10 applications to get this flat.”

“But,” she adds after a few moments, “I am glad they have realised there are poor people in Singapore now. Two years ago, they did not. You tell them, I am glad.”

Translation by Toh Ting Wei. Reporting for this article was supported by the Asia Journalism Fellowship in Singapore, funded by Temasek Foundation International