Macroscope | Hong Kong can address growing economic anxiety by tackling forced retirement and age discrimination

Some people’s skills decline well before 60, but some much after, and many have transferable skills

Hong Kong’s ageing trends and inadequate pension schemes mean its present forced retirement scheme can’t last

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Hong Kong is getting old, and will have to get more comfortable with an older workforce. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 5:00am, 19 Jul 2019Updated: 5:34am, 19 Jul 2019

An enduring theme of the recent protests on the streets of Hong Kong has been the age divide. It is a truism that if you are under 20 and you are not a socialist, you have no heart. If you are over 20 and you are a socialist, you have no head.

Young people have been criticised by their elders for being inexperienced, easily-led and naive. The old have been accused by the young as outdated, outmoded, fuddy-duddy and out of touch. After all they can barely spell “WhatsApp”, let alone “Viber” and “Telegram”. The young see things in blurred colour; the old in stark black and white.

This argument was commonly rehearsed in the UK over the Brexit debate. Those of more mature disposition, by and large, voted to leave Europe, stuck in a vision of the White Ensign flying over a glorious empire. The young felt that those older voters were inhibiting their future – pointing out that the old were going to die off and should not hinder a future of opportunities for continental work, travel, residence and cultural interaction.

As usual, both sides underestimate each other – especially as people live so much longer, there are now many more ages and more scope for acquiring experience. My 86-year-old mother-in-law can match most youngsters on email and WhatsApp.

I’m old enough to actually remember following the journey of the Apollo 11 moon shot every minute of my waking hours – so I know that it really did happen. Alternatively, the young are not easily led astray – have you ever tried to tell your children what to do? The battle of the ages is as old as mankind, but it damages modern economic productivity.

We have a peculiar battle in Hong Kong because of our most unusual population distribution, revealing a big shortage of men between the ages of 30-64. In this respect, Hong Kong resembles a war zone. The only real explanation is the unusual circumstances of the 1997 handover to China, when perhaps more men than women emigrated in their early careers and never returned.

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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Macroscope | Hong Kong can address growing economic anxiety by tackling forced retirement and age discrimination

Macroscope | Hong Kong can address growing economic anxiety by tackling forced retirement and age discrimination