Oldest Persons in Southeast Asia (book review)

30. Title :- Oldest Persons in Southeast Asia – An emerging asset.
By :- Edited by Evi N. Arifin & Aris Ananta.
Published :-Institute of South east Asian studies, Singapore 2009 (410 pages)

Outline :-Fifteen chapters by various authors showing demographic trends that Asia still has enough young people to pay tax and provide some benefit for older persons, but this trend will reverse in about 20 years. The various SE Asian countries have very different approaches to caring for old age, where Indonesian essentially has relied on the family – but now the family is broken up chasing work. Singapore pushes up age of retirement, and restricts benefits to encourage old persons to take on some work. Labor unions and governments alike are beginning to take more proactive steps in such matters for their work force. The book tries to put a positive swing on having older people work longer – typical of Singapore controlled politics. Tedious in places.