Or they will be forced to accept waves of immigration from poorer nations, a policy Germany, other European countries and Japan would like to avoid for social and cultural reasons. In the United States, one serious hurdle is ageism, Mr. Peterson says, reflecting on the youth culture that pervades many American companies. An entire stereotype will have to be reversed, along with all the institutional rules and habits of thought that perpetuate it. In Singapore, where the proportion of people 60 or older will rise to 26 percent from the current 10 percent in the next 30 years, the Government hopes to push the retirement age from 62 to 67. But Singaporeans, who must contribute to a national savings plan, can take their accumulated retirement package at age 55, and a fair number do, said Dr. Kanwal Jit Soin, a former independent member of Parliament.
Children take care of their parents and grandparents look after their grandchildren.
It also allows unskilled workers, most from poorer Asian nations, to work for limited periods, filling manual jobs that Singapore's 3.5 million people have largely outgrown through education and training for a technological future. Japan takes a different approach, rejecting increased immigration. It tries to keep people working longer through incentives to their employers, said Linda G. Martin, president of the Population Council in New York. It provides some financial incentives to companies that maintain a certain percentage of older employees, and sometimes older workers retire and are rehired by the same company, often with a lesser title or lower stature. In the third world, where most people keep on working to survive, the formal retirement situation is very mixed, and sometimes more complicated.