Time to Play the Game (2)

Generational Changes

In Asian culture, one of the means in which many families adopt the concept of filial piety, is that children take up the responsibility of supporting their parents’ livelihood when their parents are of old age.

People in the ‘Baby Boomers’ cohort (born between 1946 and 1964) are generally from families with several siblings. It is usually the case whereby several siblings share the responsibility of supporting their parents together. Normally, this would not have imposed too much financial strain. These are the people who are about 42 to 61 years of age now. [Generation X is born between 1965 and 1976. By numbers, this is a cohort smaller than the Baby Boomers and the Generation Y]

However, things are different when it comes to the Generation Y cohort (born between 1977 and 1994) of people. They are of approximately 14 to 31 years of age now and are typically the children of the Baby Boomers generation. In Singapore, the norm is that a set of ‘Baby Boomers’ parents usually have fewer children, of no more than 2 or 3 (due to a myriad of reasons like work, cost of living etc). This is a stark contrast as compared to Baby Boomers brood of up to 5 to10 siblings or even more! Intuitively, it can be seen that people of Gen Y will have a comparatively greater challenge of supporting their Baby Boomers parents, as there is now a lower child-to-parent ratio.

Now, I am not advocating that Gen Y people not to take care of their parents when they age. What I am trying to highlight here is that, the challenge may be greater than before. There is a need for Gen Y people to contemplate plans on how to take on this issue.

You see, in old age, to sustain a livelihood has a few ways:
- Tapping on own savings
- Having an on-going source of income such as pension, annuities etc.
- Continue working
- Dependent on children

One of the pertinent points is that Baby Boomers cohort may already be deeply-inculcated with the “filial piety notion of looking after your parents”. What is worth worrying about is when baby boomers do not have the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd sources. So as a factor of safety, personally, I seek a change in MINDSET in myself by not looking towards depending on a ‘conventional’ job which brings in a ‘stable income’ (By the way, I am a Gen Y person and I believe in looking after my parents when they age).

Solution

With many external factors such as economy structural changes, competitive lower labour cost from other countries, wages in Singapore may be suppressed. What is known as ‘stable income’ may not be stable anymore. This could be evident in sectors such as IT industry, service in retail industry, manufacturing etc. Even higher paid white-collar worker jobs such as doctors, engineers and high level corporate managers, can be substituted by people from other countries. There is no point in blaming the government for not helping the locals in this aspect, that aspect. This is a global phenomenon and cannot be resisted, unless the country is willing to take a blow to its competitiveness. Cut out the ‘entitlement’ mentality.

Instead, I believe one should take personal responsibility for his/her own life. If the sector or industry which the person is working in is not financially fulfilling to him, either seek to improve and earn a better income, or consider alternatives. Only when one manages to seek ways to financially enrich himself, will he be able to handle the “generational changes” issues mentioned earlier.