Baby steps toward a society of longevity

Baby steps toward a society of longevity

Pracha Jankrajang, right, was recently hired to work at Robinson Department Store in Samut Prakan despite his age. (Photo by Varuth Hirunyatheb)
Pracha Jankrajang, right, was recently hired to work at Robinson Department Store in Samut Prakan despite his age. (Photo by Varuth Hirunyatheb)

Extend the retirement age. Support labour-saving technology. Promote active ageing. Help workers learn new skills. Set up an old-age insurance system. And reduce the number of conscripts to ease the labour shortage.

These are some of the measures Thailand needs to implement to sustain economic growth as the country ages.

If not, it might be too late as Thailand's economic growth risks dropping by 0.8% a year due to the shrinking work force.

Last week, the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) held a public annual conference entitled "Longevity Society: Making Thailand Competitive, Healthy, and Secure". Our message: being a "longevity society" does not necessarily slow the country's growth if Thailand adopts the right policies.

This must start by understanding the new reality and its implications.

Older but healthier

Thanks to better healthcare, Thais now live 4.4 months longer than they did six decades ago, on average. At present, Thailand's average life expectancy is 75 years. Given the constantly improving health technology, people born in 2016 are expected to live until between 80 and 98, with all the technological progress is taken into full consideration.

Centenarians are no longer as rare as they used to be. In 2017, Thailand already had more than 9,000 of these, according to a National Statistical Office survey.

Also thanks to better healthcare, older people are much healthier. Age has become a state of mind, not how many years we have lived.

Increasing the retirement age to 65 is then necessary to enable active and healthy older people to contribute to the economy.

According to Nonarit Bisonyabut, a TDRI senior research fellow, retaining workers in the 50-60 age group and reskilling them would soften the economic slowdown by 9%. Bringing workers in the 60-69 age group back to the workforce would improve the situation by another 2%. Increasing the number of migrant workers also helps in the short run, but will cause problems in the long run. To sustain the current level of growth, however, more investment in automation and increasing overall productivity are both required.

Understanding the profile of older people also brings new business opportunities.

Apart from being health-conscious, older people nowadays are more educated and have more work experience than in previous generations. More of them live alone and tend to pursue personal interests outside their communities. Their houses need to be adjusted to keep them safe in their old age, while their health problems mainly stem from non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure due to the lifestyle.

A longevity society creates at least 20 promising businesses to serve senior citizens and other age groups. Among them: health tourism, home and care for the elderly, house renovation and smart home solutions, reverse mortgages for senior citizens, anti-ageing products, holistic healthcare, fertility clinics, pet products, food supplements, robotic tools for the elderly, and education for retirees.

To sustain productivity amid a diminishing workforce, the business sector then needs to adopt new recruitment policy to hire older workers, make the workplace safe for them, and use more automation, robotics, software, and artificial intelligence in the manufacturing, agricultural, and service sectors to tackle the labour shortage.

Automation & robotics

Since Thai farmers are between 50-60 years old on average, the use of automation and robotics in agriculture can effectively tackle the labour shortage and increase productivity. It will also significantly ease environmental problems.

For example, using drones to dispense chemical fertilisers would reduce the amount of fertiliser by 50-70% and help farmers trim their labour costs by 30-50%.

Thai farmers would then enjoy better health from not being directly exposed to farm chemicals.

Also, the use of cane-harvesting machines will ease the problem of toxic haze from farm burning due to the labour shortage. One machine with only six workers can cut 250-300 tonnes of cane a day, while manual harvesting demands 167-200 workers for the same amount.

Investing in automation and robotics in the food industry also increases productivity, and speeds up product distribution to meet increasing demand.

Similarly, the use of software and AI in the service sector speeds up work several-fold and improves accuracy.

Creating new growth engines is still necessary. Thailand should tap the huge demand from a growing number of senior citizens.

While there are 13 million citizens over 60 in Thailand, there are 70 million of them in the Asean region, and 200 million in China.

Cities for active ageing

With growing urbanisation, the majority of older people will be living in cities. We then need to make cities support active and healthy ageing by making it easy for people to exercise, participate in social activities, and live an active life safely.

Therefore, cities should be walkable, have enough green space, and provide easily accessible and safe mass transportation systems that benefit all age groups, not only older people.

But Bangkok is still unfriendly to people in a longevity society.

For starters, only one-fourth of its residents live within a walkable 1.5-kilometre radius of public parks. Bangkok is also not considered safe for walking. According to international walkability scores, Bangkok only gets 18 out of 40 marks. The footpaths are often too narrow and ridden with walking obstacles. Many roads lack footpaths.

The BTS Skytrain system is largely inaccessible to senior citizens and people on wheelchairs. Only 59% of the stations have elevators and wheelchair ramps. Often, the elevators do not function while the ramps are located in tight corners which make them inaccessible.

Taking buses is not easy either for people with physical limitations. Low-floor buses make up only 30% of the whole bus system. Moreover, most bus stops still do not accommodate the parking of low-floor buses.

Most elderly prefer to use motorcycle taxis. But these can prove deadly. Of all the casualties from road accidents, 61% of the elderly victims are either motorcycle drivers or passengers.

Financial security

The future looks grim for most older people who do not have enough savings.

It will be difficult for them to receive family support as extended families are on the decline while the number of nuclear families and people living alone is on the rise.

According to Associate Professor Worawan Chandoevwit, lecturer at Khon Kaen University's Faculty of Economics and a TDRI advisor, extended families have dropped from 80% from three decades ago to 49% at present. Over the same period, nuclear families have increased from 7% to 20%, and one-person households from 6.5% to 21%.

At present, about 35% of elderly people's income is from their children. Parents in the near future most likely won't have this opportunity as the number of children per household has dropped from 1.4 to 0.5 on average.

According to Ms Worawan's research, an older person living in a rural area needs at least 7,000 baht for their basic necessities. But only 11% of older people have more than a million baht of savings. With a monthly expense of 7,000 baht, these would last a decade. To live until 100 from the age of 60, they need at least 2.8 million baht of savings.

Meanwhile, the minimum monthly expenses for the richest 5% of elderly people in urban areas is 19,000 baht. They need to have at least 10 million baht in savings when they are 60 to finance their lifestyles until 100. If they live in the countryside, where the cost of living is lower, they still need to have at least 5.9 million baht of savings.

With insufficient savings, they will suffer greatly in their 80s and 90s. This will particularly affect women as they statistically outlive their husbands.

By 2027, there will be at least 200,000 bedridden and 300,000 housebound elderly people in Thailand. That number will pass a million in 20 years.

As of now, it takes 120,000 baht per year to care for housebound old people while it takes 230,000 baht for the bedridden.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for mandatory and voluntary saving schemes as well as a health insurance system for the bedridden and housebound.

Lifelong learning

To keep pace with new market demand, the business sector must support employees in learning new skills. Making workplaces more ergonomic also serves workers across the board.

To keep older persons active, the government should offer tax incentives or low-interest loans to companies that hire older people and support lifelong learning.

Our society is at a crossroads, but if make society and businesses more friendly to people who are living longer, we can survive and thrive.

Somkiat Tangkitvanich, PhD, is president of the Thailand Development Research Institute. Policy analyses from the TDRI appear in the Bangkok Post on alternate Wednesdays.

Somkiat Tangkitvanich

TDRI President

Somkiat Tangkitvanich, PhD, is president of the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI). Policy analyses from the TDRI appear in the Bangkok Post on alternate Wednesdays.

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