- Thu
- Oct 3, 2013
- Updated: 3:31am
'Active ageing', flexible retirement part of elderly care strategy
I refer to the letter by Chris Stubbs ("Seniors need to work, not be patronised", September 21), in reply to my letter ("'Aware, caring' government spending billions on elderly", September 13).
His letter prompted me to share with your readers another important, though less discussed, aspect of ageing society - active ageing.
While the Hong Kong government devotes significant resources to much-needed elderly care services, we agree that ageing should be a positive experience. Elderly people are not just passive targets of our service. They can be active contributors to their families and community. Indeed, as part of our multi-pronged elderly care strategy, we have all along been promoting "active ageing" and striving to improve the quality of life of our elderly.
To this end, the Labour and Welfare Bureau and the Elderly Commission have jointly carried out a series of projects. These include the Elder Academy Scheme and Neighbourhood Active-Ageing Project. The former offers wide-ranging courses for elderly of different educational levels to pursue lifelong learning. The latter develops support networks and enables the elderly to serve the community with their talents.
A further impetus to encourage our senior citizens to integrate into society comes with the recent implementation of the Public Transport Fare Concession Scheme for the Elderly and Eligible Persons with Disability. Popularly known as the "$2 Scheme", it benefits over one million elderly citizens aged 65 or above and 130,000 eligible persons with disabilities. The daily average passenger trips under the scheme have reached 660,000, of which 88 per cent are the elderly.
Many who have retired or are aged well beyond 65 are still active and want purposeful work to contribute to society. With our workforce projected to shrink from 2018 onwards, there is room to tap this treasure trove of human resources. The high-level Steering Committee on Population Policy, chaired by the chief secretary, is considering how best to attract and facilitate more elderly to stay in or join the labour force through flexible retirement arrangements. This would help replenish Hong Kong's dwindling workforce and provide gainful work which promotes the health and well-being of senior citizens.
The government is also conducting a preliminary study to assess the manpower and retirement situation in the civil service and look at possible options for extending the service of civil servants to address any succession or operational needs.
We will continue to explore ways to enable our elderly citizens to realise their potential.
Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, Secretary for Labour and Welfare
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5:04pm
1. To provide free medical check certificates for those above 60 for suitability to work in order to assure the prospective employers that the elderlies are suitable to work for about 4 hours a day (20 hours a week).
2. To deduct 5% of their employment income for provision of medical insurance supported by Government.
3. To stop wastage of subsidy money on the “Elder Academy Scheme” which requires payment of course fee, albeit small, is unwilling to be paid by elderlies. There are many free on-line free courses providing wide-ranging subjects by famous tertiary education institutions such as those from Ivy League (e.g. Coursera). Elder Academy Scheme should, instead of providing its own courses, assist elderlies to learn from the free on-line courses.
4. To encourage employers to provide part-time jobs for elderlies such as employment subsidies. Government should start employing elderlies on a part-time basis to kick start this initiative e.g. for checking abuse of Public Housing rental, answering complaints or other office chores which require elderlies patience.
5. To break the red-tape of employing elderlies such as the requirement of the Education Bureau in registration under the Education Ordinance (EO)as either a registered teacher or a permitted teacher.
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