Singapore's lonely seniors: Why the super-aged feel isolated even when living with family

**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
This is a podcast by The Straits Times.

**Lynda Hong** (0:17)
Singapore is now officially a super-aged society, with more than one in five above the age of 65
But beyond the healthcare budgets and the policy debates, what does that actually look like on the ground? Hello, I'm Lynda Hong, Assistant Podcast Editor of The Straits Times. You're listening to In Your Opinion. In this episode, we'll discuss how seniors can get lonely, even if they're living with their families. My guest will unpack the psychology of elderly isolation. She heads a social service agency that engages almost 13,000 seniors, providing them with holistic care and support to help them age healthily within the community.
Lions Befrienders Executive Director, Karen Wee, welcome to the show.

**Karen Wee** (1:03)
Good morning, Lynda, and good morning, Singapore.

**Lynda Hong** (1:06)
Yes, Karen, maybe we could discuss a little bit about how serious is this problem of lonely seniors.

**Karen Wee** (1:13)
Okay, lonely seniors in many parts of the world is also equated with progress. So, it comes at the cost with economic development. Having said that, lonely seniors is actually a very serious problem for society as well as for families and individuals. Now in lonely seniors, people will always confuse or rather broadly associate loneliness with staying alone. But staying alone is just a subset of social connectedness, which is also loneliness. So, even if an elderly is staying with the family members, he or she could still be lonely. What does loneliness means? Loneliness means that there is no more connection or there's limited social connection. What it means is when the grandchild comes back, it's like, hi grandma, closes the door when he enters the room. He doesn't talk, he comes out only for a meal. So having staying in the same family, is there a conversation? Is there people understanding one another? No. Because when we don't talk, we don't have a relationship. When we don't have a relationship, we are like total strangers. No different from two person in a lift, being close, holding your breath, avoiding stairs, when the door closes. The moment the door opens, like, hey, I'm getting out, and everyone's relieved. And to be fair, every one of us has that. But what is sad is, when that happens in their own family, we have among people who stay together.
So when we talk about social loneliness and social connectedness, we are looking beyond just a family needed by blood or connected by blood. It could be anyone, friends, neighbors. They are now sadly or positively part of the extended family.
Why do we say so?
In line with the home ownership policy since we had in 1960s, which is important, a side effect comes when every family unit starts to have its own housing. Then if you realize much later, there was a policy of if you stay within your parents by a certain kilometer, you get added rebates for the housing flat.
I think that policy came out about 1990s or late 80s. And more people after getting married will want the freedom. And this is some celebration that we have. It's a positive thing. But when we start having own families, own children going to work, we have to admit, live in Singapore, in our need to stay relevant in the world, to continue to put food on the table, we work very hard, every one of us.
Do we have time for our parents? The answer is no. Because if you look at your competing needs, you have children who are confirmed dependent on us. And you look at the parents, who's more independent? Of course, the parents, the grandparents, right, with the elderly. So with that, when the shift of resources comes towards other people, other than the seniors, and the seniors always say, don't worry, I'm okay. But actually, they still need the high touch. Because they are trained to say, we need the children to do well. So they will hold back themselves. They will not demand of our time. Yes, many of us have the money, we can give money. We also use ATM, we also use gyro.
Yeah, we use online banking to transfer money to parents into their bank account. All right. So with technology, people have gotten very efficient, which is not wrong, but it means that human relationships are now less common, more shallow or less deeper, and it's very limited. The same goes for the seniors. So when they tell the children, don't worry. But the question is, they keep everything to themselves. Do they have people to talk with or talk to? That is the most important thing. And yesterday, I was at an international conference, and it was stated, there was a strong association in the research, that aging or aging decline in the person's connection, et cetera, it's more associated with social health than physical health. Meaning, a person can be physically healthy, but socially less connected. He will have a poorer health results or impact than the person who is socially healthy, but less physically healthy. What keeps us going and getting out of bed every day?