7 ms·

In Hong Kong, Grandma Has to Find a Job

50 points by throwaway344 12y ago

throwaway344 12y ago
I found the paradox of this phenomenon and supposedly elder-friendly Confucianism interesting.
seivan 12y ago
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.
- Zirro 12y ago
  I am Swedish, and I can't say that I've seen (or even heard of) this where I live. Could you link any sources supporting your claim?
  - seivan 12y ago
    Then you live in a bubble. Go to T-Centralen. I used to see an older _Swedish_ lady every single Friday night on the green line between T-Centralen and Medis. She wears red, has 'rullator'. http://www.etc.se/inrikes/utforsakrade-johan-maste-tigga-ihop-pengar-till-mat http://www.etc.se/inrikes/utforsakrade-johan-maste-tigga-iho... Johan isn't alone. Go by the Göta Lejon theatre entrance, you will see Swedish homeless sleeping there. There of course also EU-Migrants nearby in the subway, but you can make out the difference I am sure. Swedes sleep in their bubbles, thinking everything will be awesome while the government is going bat-shit crazy with (islamic) blasphemy laws, insane migration and allowing Jihadis into the government. Good luck with the pension and and credit-bubble. Just read that Sweden gave asylum and permanent residency to an ISIS-rapist who tortured a man on camera. They even had a confession.
    - Zirro 12y ago
      "...bat-shit crazy with (islamic) blasphemy laws, insane migration and allowing Jihadis into the government" This says a lot about why you dislike the immigration-friendly Sweden of today. I have no desire to engage in a debate with a racist. I hope that the people on HN sharing your views will remain few.
      - ChainsawSurgery 12y ago
        What was racist about that?
        Zirro 12y ago
        As far as I can tell we have not gone "crazy with islamic blasphemy laws" nor do I find the generous immigration politics to be insane, but rather humane given the way the world currently looks. Statements similar to those made by seivan are frequently made by those who are openly racist. As for the last point, it looked to me as though the implied reasoning was "Person with roots in the middle east = Jihadist", as this is also a frequent way to reason among real racists. If this was not the intention, which seems unlikely given the next post, I apologize for drawing a rushed conclusion. I have not seen anything indicating that we have elected any jihadists in our government, only people with roots outside Scandinavia. I follow several different media daily. I do not live in a bubble.
        ChainsawSurgery 12y ago
        I suppose I'm more curious about the 'racist' part of it. 'Xenophobic', perhaps, but 'racism' doesn't really seem to be at the root of their statement. I also worry that sometimes the 'r' word gets thrown around too much and starts to lose meaning after awhile (and 'racist' starts to become an all-encompassing term that doesn't actually mean anything), which is why I'm asking.
        Zirro 12y ago
        Given that they seem to have a strong dislike towards a particular group based on a post from yesterday that was flagkilled, racism did seem more appropriate. Though in this case it may be about religion, rather than race. I do not wish to quote that post, but you can find it in their history after enabling the "showdead" option on your profile.
- danschuller 12y ago
  I'm living in Hong Kong now and I see old people collecting cardboard and looking through bins more than once a day. It's not a good situation! There are more news stories of older people commiting suicide compared to the UK. Five-ish years ago I was living in Singapore too but I don't recall ever seeing it there, especially nothing compared to Hong Kong.
  - seivan 12y ago
    Yeah, it's nothing compared to Hong Kong from what I've heard. Singapore actually have _some_ level of help, but I'm not an expert on that so don't quote me. However, I meant the actual labouring. I saw a lot of elderly people working McDonalds and cleaning tables. By elderly, I mean 70+.
- Jedd 12y ago
  Singapore is an interesting place in this regard. Parents discourage their children from engaging in potentially risky activities (eg. entrepreneur, startups, etc) because that puts their (the parents') future well-being in substantial jeopardy. The weight of that jeopardy is best conveyed by the fact that there are ~300 families in Singapore that are receiving welfare, and each of those are handled on a case-by-case basis. Caveat -- my understanding is based on the information provided by a friend living in Singapore, working in the tech industry, having spent some years trying to engender a startup culture. Apparently things are changing now, but that's the (recent) history. HK is doubtless more complicated.
kanwisher 12y ago
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
- lars512 12y ago
  Without a welfare state, sounds like good incentive to have lots of kids!
  - guard-of-terra 12y ago
    Isn't it kind of hard to simultaneously care about elders and "a lot of" kids?
    - latch 12y ago
      Generally, the period where your kids and parents are a handful don't overlap: 0 - 30 - 60.
  - yitchelle 12y ago
    Good incentive indeed. Both of my parents are from Chinese families and grew up in Malaysia. Dad is one of eleven siblings and Mum is one of eight siblings. Back then, it wasn't from the government welfare, it was for the kids to look after the elderly parents. Of course, several things need to be in place for this to play out. The kids needs to be working in a relatively well paid job, the kids needs to have quite a smallish family, the kids must also subscribe to the same mindset as well. Some work out, but the majority does not work out as the mindset of the younger generation starts to shift.
    - Theodores 12y ago
      "Dad is one of eleven siblings and Mum is one of eight siblings." Looks like your folks went for the "Human Pyramid Scheme" instead of expecting the government to pay for their old age. But yes, 'Human Pyramid Scheme', it is frightening!
latch 12y ago
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.
- rayiner 12y ago
  That debt isn't new, but is instead just a formalization of an arrangement that goes back to antiquity--each child is born with the obligation to take care of his or her parents when they get old.
  - cinquemb 12y ago
    Such arrangement seems to become unsustainable if the age distribution in a population in an area is skewed/starts to skew not in the younger direction, and if the younger generations don't want to take on the debt load.
    - latch 12y ago
      Which seems to be the route most countries are headed towards (India being the obvious exception). Good news is that Japan will get there first, so we can see what the actual impact is.
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        Japan is a-typical in many ways.
  - DanielBMarkham 12y ago
    Syphilis is also not new, but that doesn't mean that it's not a problem. Inter-generational debt can and does destroy both societies and governmental systems. I'd argue that over the next 40 years, it's probably the biggest problem the western democracies are facing. I didn't want to dive too much into the political side of this, but I found your comment to be a little too flip given the nature of the topic. One of the major advancements in civilization was the idea that parents _cannot_ pass their debts down to their children. That worked great for many decades, but we seem to have found away around that by collectivizing it. Not good.
calyth42 12y ago
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.
tokenadult 12y ago
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/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...
- UweSchmidt 12y ago
  Not so sure about the general health of old people. Modern medicine keeps people alive, but working today's stressful jobs? I'm glad for your grandfathers, what kind of work did they do?
  - tokenadult 12y ago
    One grandfather was a farmer (dry-land farming and animal husbandry on the Great Plains), the other a manager of a small town department store.
EGreg 12y ago
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.

50 points by throwaway344 12y ago

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

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.

Zirro 12y ago
I am Swedish, and I can't say that I've seen (or even heard of) this where I live. Could you link any sources supporting your claim?
- seivan 12y ago
  Then you live in a bubble. Go to T-Centralen. I used to see an older _Swedish_ lady every single Friday night on the green line between T-Centralen and Medis. She wears red, has 'rullator'. http://www.etc.se/inrikes/utforsakrade-johan-maste-tigga-ihop-pengar-till-mat http://www.etc.se/inrikes/utforsakrade-johan-maste-tigga-iho... Johan isn't alone. Go by the Göta Lejon theatre entrance, you will see Swedish homeless sleeping there. There of course also EU-Migrants nearby in the subway, but you can make out the difference I am sure. Swedes sleep in their bubbles, thinking everything will be awesome while the government is going bat-shit crazy with (islamic) blasphemy laws, insane migration and allowing Jihadis into the government. Good luck with the pension and and credit-bubble. Just read that Sweden gave asylum and permanent residency to an ISIS-rapist who tortured a man on camera. They even had a confession.
  - Zirro 12y ago
    "...bat-shit crazy with (islamic) blasphemy laws, insane migration and allowing Jihadis into the government" This says a lot about why you dislike the immigration-friendly Sweden of today. I have no desire to engage in a debate with a racist. I hope that the people on HN sharing your views will remain few.
    - ChainsawSurgery 12y ago
      What was racist about that?
      - Zirro 12y ago
        As far as I can tell we have not gone "crazy with islamic blasphemy laws" nor do I find the generous immigration politics to be insane, but rather humane given the way the world currently looks. Statements similar to those made by seivan are frequently made by those who are openly racist. As for the last point, it looked to me as though the implied reasoning was "Person with roots in the middle east = Jihadist", as this is also a frequent way to reason among real racists. If this was not the intention, which seems unlikely given the next post, I apologize for drawing a rushed conclusion. I have not seen anything indicating that we have elected any jihadists in our government, only people with roots outside Scandinavia. I follow several different media daily. I do not live in a bubble.
        ChainsawSurgery 12y ago
        I suppose I'm more curious about the 'racist' part of it. 'Xenophobic', perhaps, but 'racism' doesn't really seem to be at the root of their statement. I also worry that sometimes the 'r' word gets thrown around too much and starts to lose meaning after awhile (and 'racist' starts to become an all-encompassing term that doesn't actually mean anything), which is why I'm asking.
        Zirro 12y ago
        Given that they seem to have a strong dislike towards a particular group based on a post from yesterday that was flagkilled, racism did seem more appropriate. Though in this case it may be about religion, rather than race. I do not wish to quote that post, but you can find it in their history after enabling the "showdead" option on your profile.
danschuller 12y ago
I'm living in Hong Kong now and I see old people collecting cardboard and looking through bins more than once a day. It's not a good situation! There are more news stories of older people commiting suicide compared to the UK. Five-ish years ago I was living in Singapore too but I don't recall ever seeing it there, especially nothing compared to Hong Kong.
- seivan 12y ago
  Yeah, it's nothing compared to Hong Kong from what I've heard. Singapore actually have _some_ level of help, but I'm not an expert on that so don't quote me. However, I meant the actual labouring. I saw a lot of elderly people working McDonalds and cleaning tables. By elderly, I mean 70+.
Jedd 12y ago
Singapore is an interesting place in this regard. Parents discourage their children from engaging in potentially risky activities (eg. entrepreneur, startups, etc) because that puts their (the parents') future well-being in substantial jeopardy. The weight of that jeopardy is best conveyed by the fact that there are ~300 families in Singapore that are receiving welfare, and each of those are handled on a case-by-case basis. Caveat -- my understanding is based on the information provided by a friend living in Singapore, working in the tech industry, having spent some years trying to engender a startup culture. Apparently things are changing now, but that's the (recent) history. HK is doubtless more complicated.

kanwisher 12y ago

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

lars512 12y ago
Without a welfare state, sounds like good incentive to have lots of kids!
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
  Isn't it kind of hard to simultaneously care about elders and "a lot of" kids?
  - latch 12y ago
    Generally, the period where your kids and parents are a handful don't overlap: 0 - 30 - 60.
- yitchelle 12y ago
  Good incentive indeed. Both of my parents are from Chinese families and grew up in Malaysia. Dad is one of eleven siblings and Mum is one of eight siblings. Back then, it wasn't from the government welfare, it was for the kids to look after the elderly parents. Of course, several things need to be in place for this to play out. The kids needs to be working in a relatively well paid job, the kids needs to have quite a smallish family, the kids must also subscribe to the same mindset as well. Some work out, but the majority does not work out as the mindset of the younger generation starts to shift.
  - Theodores 12y ago
    "Dad is one of eleven siblings and Mum is one of eight siblings." Looks like your folks went for the "Human Pyramid Scheme" instead of expecting the government to pay for their old age. But yes, 'Human Pyramid Scheme', it is frightening!

latch 12y ago

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.

rayiner 12y ago
That debt isn't new, but is instead just a formalization of an arrangement that goes back to antiquity--each child is born with the obligation to take care of his or her parents when they get old.
- cinquemb 12y ago
  Such arrangement seems to become unsustainable if the age distribution in a population in an area is skewed/starts to skew not in the younger direction, and if the younger generations don't want to take on the debt load.
  - latch 12y ago
    Which seems to be the route most countries are headed towards (India being the obvious exception). Good news is that Japan will get there first, so we can see what the actual impact is.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Japan is a-typical in many ways.
- DanielBMarkham 12y ago
  Syphilis is also not new, but that doesn't mean that it's not a problem. Inter-generational debt can and does destroy both societies and governmental systems. I'd argue that over the next 40 years, it's probably the biggest problem the western democracies are facing. I didn't want to dive too much into the political side of this, but I found your comment to be a little too flip given the nature of the topic. One of the major advancements in civilization was the idea that parents _cannot_ pass their debts down to their children. That worked great for many decades, but we seem to have found away around that by collectivizing it. Not good.

calyth42 12y ago

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.

tokenadult 12y ago

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/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...

UweSchmidt 12y ago
Not so sure about the general health of old people. Modern medicine keeps people alive, but working today's stressful jobs? I'm glad for your grandfathers, what kind of work did they do?
- tokenadult 12y ago
  One grandfather was a farmer (dry-land farming and animal husbandry on the Great Plains), the other a manager of a small town department store.

EGreg 12y ago

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.