from Hacker News

In Hong Kong, Grandma Has to Find a Job

by throwaway344 on 2/24/15, 5:34 AM with 50 comments

• by kanwisher on 2/24/15, 11:37 AM

  Most asian cultures, there is no social security cause the children are supposed to take care of the parents. Generally speaking they usually live in same house. Here in Thailand we get tax credits if our parents are old and don't have a pension. Its called the "good child" exemption

• by tokenadult on 2/24/15, 3:02 PM

  Older people tend to live longer and healthier lives if they continue working past the customary retirement age. Both of my grandfathers (who became adults before Social Security existed in the United States, and who aged into old age when the standard retirement age was 65) worked until about age 75. They both lived well into their eighties, with my paternal grandfather dying from being hit by an errantly driven car rather than from disease. My parents both retired right on the dot at age 65, and I think that has been worse for their health than continuing to work longer (my dad has now died, at a younger age than his dad died at).

  The article kindly submitted here mentions an issue of age imbalance in the population. "The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and World Health Organization forecast Hong Kong will have the highest share of population aged 65 years and over in Asia by 2050 with 42 percent, outpacing Japan's 39 percent." That's an exceptionally skewed age ratio for any place in the world. If people cease working at age 65 in such a place, a large proportion of the population (both children and the elderly) have to be supported by a not very large proportion of the population at working age. That's difficult to do whether support for the elderly comes from their own children or from taxpayers in general.

  What's happening in many countries, of course, is that people are living far longer into old age than they imagined they possibly could decades ago.[1] Life expectancies at adult ages (say, 40, or 65) are increasing steadily all over the developed world. If people retire at the same age as decades ago, in much better health and with many more years of remaining life ahead, it's not surprising that their personal savings may run out. The response is to keep the proportion of working years over a whole lifespan a more or less constant proportion of healthy life years.

  [1] http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...

• by seivan on 2/24/15, 11:34 AM

  Saw this in Singapore as well. I expect most countries will end up like this (except maybe Norway). Including "welfare" (HAH!) states like Sweden.

  I see old people begging because lack of jobs - that's native Swedes, not just EU-migrants these days. Didn't see that 10 years ago.

• by EGreg on 2/24/15, 3:11 PM

  Here's the way I see it:

  Robots and automation may actually be the way we can get off the addictive economic treadmill of having the you g pay for the old by an ever expanding population. It is unsustainable.

  They have already done so through increased worker productivity, but may ultimately replace young people as the "breadwinners" for those who can't or won't work.

  This is to be welcomed, as we can economically support a shrinking population that grows wealthier over time. The traditional refrain of wealth redistribution being from "productive" members of society to the non productive will be upended. Many people will be consumers, producing things most people won't pay large amounts of money for.

• by latch on 2/24/15, 12:41 PM

  I lived for a couple years in HK and then other Asian countries, and this does stands out. But if the alternative is a debt-based welfare state....

  I don't think there's any doubt the Hong Kong government needs to do a better job with affordable housing, but I also don't like the fact that my nephew was born with a $20K debt while 50% of my mother's pension is being payed by taxpayers.

• by calyth42 on 2/24/15, 3:00 PM

  Aside from the government being a fiscal conservative, the word "tax" is a dirty word for many ordinary Hong Kongers.

  Their lack of tax diversity is also one of the main reasons why housing is so damn expensive, because the government make money there.

• by throwaway344 on 2/24/15, 5:34 AM

  I found the paradox of this phenomenon and supposedly elder-friendly Confucianism interesting.