By Ang Yiying
FILIAL piety is still strong here - but in Singapore, more often
than not, it means that children have hired maids to look after
their elderly parents.
In an ongoing nationwide survey, seven in 10 individuals aged 75
and up said their children were the ones primarily looking after
them, although, in many cases, this 'looking after' involved hiring
a foreign domestic worker to do the job, or at least to take the
edge off the stress of care-giving.
These insights, the preliminary results of a study organised by
the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, were drawn
from interviews with about 200 pairs of elderly folk and their
respective main caregivers.
They were presented by National University of Singapore
sociologist Angelique Chan, who heads the Tsao Foundation Ageing
Research Initiative.
She spoke yesterday at a round-table discussion on caregivers
for older adults, an issue increasingly aired, given that one in
five people here will be age 65 or older by 2030.
A fuller report on care-giving in Singapore, based on the
study's entire sample of 1,800 pairs of elderly folk and their
caregivers or would-be caregivers, is expected in July.