EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Age discrimination has existed for a long period of time. The purpose of this essay is to examine the age discrimination issue in Singapore, and the scope of this essay will covers the issues and the group of people involved, why it is important for us to talk about it, and where we can start to fix the problem. All the results reported in the essay were obtained from the newspaper articles, internet as well as a self-driven survey. (79 words)
THE ISSUES AND WHO ARE INVOLVED Prejudice and Discrimination has resulted in unfair treatment among the older workers in the society. In this essay, I will be examining the reasons that led to age discrimination among the older workers in Singapore, how this had affected the society, and what the individuals and the society can do to reduce such discrimination. The reason for choosing this particular area to talk about is because age discrimination is something that had existed for long time, and many older workers have always been out casted either by their employees or from job agencies once they hit certain age or when they are nearing their retirement age. As new generation will always be there to replace the older ones, thus older workers will always be faced with age discrimination, as the younger generation are more efficient and their pay is lower. Age discrimination have resulted in many older workers facing lack of jobs, unjustified layoffs and even forced retirements. Furthermore, age discrimination in Singapore is getting younger because, in the past, people in their 50s will still be employed, but with the change in the demographics of the workforce, it had resulted in workers having difficulties finding a job even in their 40s. When people talked about the older workers in the society, some common stereotypes that we would hear would be: they are less productive, not good at technologies, unable to cope with physical demands, not efficient, high salaries demanders, cannot endure long hours, poor eyesight, and they are inflexible.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR US TO TALK ABOUT IT? Age discrimination is still on-going despite many companies claiming that they operate on a hiring practice which forbids age discrimination. This discrimination originated from a misconception that the so-called ‘baby-boomers’ born between 1946 and 1964 were those that might suffers from health problems, incapable in using new technologies, and they are high salaries demanders (Health, 2003). After the end of World War II, the younger generations began to take over the jobs in the workplace, leaving the older workers with little alternatives, but to leave. In a survey conducted with 1,500 respondents in 2007 by Kelly Services, two thirds of them reported that they had experienced some prejudices when applying for a job for the past five years, and of which, 29% of them indicated age as the most common form of discrimination (Koh, 2007). To support this analysis, a survey was conducted with 20 randomly selected workers aged 20 to 60 years old, and results shown that 95% of them agree that older workers in Singapore are faced with age discrimination, and 40% of them even had friends, relatives and family members who had experienced age discrimination before. The reasons that led to age discrimination mainly came from the stereotyping of the older workers. Due to this discrimination, many faced difficulties when looking for a job and they were not being employed even if they have the ability to handle the job. This has resulted in many losing their confidence and self-esteem to look for other jobs. One recent example of age discrimination in the workplace occurred when my father went for job interview as a driver in a frozen meat factory one month ago. The job requires my father to carry frozen meats that weigh about 30-odd kilograms from the freezer to the lorry for delivery every day. My father certainly had the ability to do to handle the job, but he was rejected on grounds that he was too old for the job and he do not have the strength to carry the frozen meats. After facing a few similar incidents, my father felt very demoralised, and was deeply hurt for not being able to find a job. He even thought of giving up after a few attempts. Age discrimination does not only take in the workplace, it also occurs in the government policies. Under the CPF Act, employers’ contribution rate for their employees will change when the employees reach a certain age group. Based on the table below, we can see that age discrimination occurs once the employees reach the age of 50 years old as their employer will be contributing lesser for them. When an employee is 50 years old and below, the employers’ contribution rate is 14.5%, however, when they are between 51- 55 years old, the rate dropped to 10.5%, and this rate fall to 7.5% between 55 and 60, and it hit the base of 5% from age 60. (Central Provident Fund Board, 2010). Besides that, under the Retirements Act, it was clearly stated that when an employee reaches the age of 60 years old, their employer may deduct their wages up till a maximum of 10% of the their wages rate, in accordance to the section (Singapore Statues, 2010). This had encouraged many private sectors to take advantage of this law to cut down their costs (Basu, 2010), and this also shows that even the government policies are discriminating the older workers as well.
WHERE CAN WE START TO FIX THE PROBLEM? Age discrimination had created unfairness in the society, and in a survey conducted in 2003, 76.3% of the employers would not consider hiring older workers despite low pay due to changes in the CPF contribution rate (Heath, 2003). With Singapore moving towards an aging population (Tan, 2007), this will be a worrying issue as there will be many older workers left unemployed. In addition, for those who are employed, they will tend to receive a lower wage rate, or have their employment benefits being removed, and some may even experience a pay cut. All these will greatly affect the individual’s confidence and self esteem, and they will be very discouraged, thus many may choose to give up eventually. However, from the society’s perspective, if these workers continued to remain unemployed, it will mean that they would have to depend on the government to support them since no one is willing to hire them, so this will in turn increase the government’s burden as well. Therefore, in order to reduce or even eradicate the problem of age discrimination, the employers, individual old workers and the government must be involved. (i) Employers Employers may consider re-designing their employment policies to include a fixed number of older workers to work in the company. In addition, they can also provide alternatives job arrangements that are suitable for the older workers. (ii) Individuals Old Worker
Individuals should increase their workability by ensuring that they are healthy, and they should constantly upgrade themselves by attending courses so that they will meet the demands of the job that they want. (iii) Government
Besides those measures taken to reduce this discrimination, one other alternative that they may consider will be to remove the policy under the Retirement Act, so that the older workers will not need to suffer a pay-cut once they reached the age of 60. In conclusion, age discrimination has hurt many of the older workers in one way or another, thus, everyone should play a part to reduce it so that they can be treated equally in the society.

References:
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Central Provident Fund Board. (2010). CPF Contribution Rates. Retrieved April 28 2010, from http://mycpf.cpf.gov.sg/Employers/Gen-Info/cpf- Contri/ContriRa.htm
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Singapore Statues. (2010). Retirement Age Act (Chapter 274A).Retrieved April 28,2010, from http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/.
Tan, E.K.B. (2009, October 31). Ageism at the office; Why age-based wage, CPF cuts are discriminatory. Today (Singapore). Retrieved April 23 2010, from FACTIVA Database.