Warnings that Malaysia’s ageing population could reach crisis levels in less than two decades are becoming increasingly frequent.

The range of experts who are forecasting a bleak future for a significant number of the elderly include economists, development planners, health specialists, financial advisers and sociologists.

Government leaders have also been highlighting the implications of the population trend on national resources and society at large.

The multi-dimensional nature of the problem is evident from the spread of perspectives represented by these areas of study.

The discussion on the issue is broadly covered in the 2016 paper, “Policies and Protections for Ageing Society in Malaysia”, published in the Journal of Southeast Asian Research by a Multimedia University team led by Olivia Tan Swee Leng.

Among the stark challenges cited in the paper are:

• A UNDP report states that 90% of retirement fund contributors do not have enough funds to sustain even a simple lifestyle for five years after retiring.

• Ensuring decent employment for the young while providing for the growing proportion of the elderly will become a major issue.

• Healthcare costs, retirement income, elderly care, accessibility issues, the availability of facilities and social and familial relationships are just some of the major concerns that need to be addressed on an increasingly urgent basis.

It is important to recognise that although population studies project a developing crisis a couple of decades into the future, the problems of ageing in a society that is grossly unprepared to deal with the issues involved is a biting reality for many senior citizens today.

The priority areas for action as identified in the National Policy for Older Persons, 2011, provide the necessary direction for engagement with the issues of an ageing society. They include:

• Enhancing the respect and self-worth of the elderly in the family, society and nation;

• Developing the potential of the elderly so that they remain active and productive and creating opportunities for them to continue to live independently; and

• Encouraging the establishment and the provision of facilities for the care and protection of the elderly.

These policy statements indicate that there are significant gaps in the current institutional, societal and inter-personal approaches towards the elderly.

The questions that arise from these issues focus attention on the failure of current economic thinking to integrate all segments of society into mutually supportive relationships, leaving those that are unproductive in the conventional economic sense to be tended to by the social safety net.

As a result of this unnatural fragmentation of society into productive and unproductive elements, the factors of production are largely viewed in isolation from their human and social contexts in the mistaken belief that this is the best way to achieve optimum efficiency.

The huge social, psychological and economic costs of this error, as exemplified in the crisis of an ageing society, or for that matter, the concerns about child development in modern society, offer important lessons for a world in search of meaning and fulfilment.

Business groups can fulfil an important civic responsibility by helping to support programmes aimed at addressing issues like the social isolation experienced by the elderly.

There is a clear need to draw on the expertise of senior citizens to mentor the young, to serve as role models and to attend to a host of social issues that the elderly are uniquely suited to engage with in view of their experience, availability and need for self-actualisation, among other things.

Globally, there are a number of inspiring examples of innovative initiatives to turn the challenges of an ageing society into new sources of economic resilience.

The UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research report, “Silver Cities: Realising the potential of our growing older population” (2014), highlights a number of such pioneering programmes.

• The province of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands has developed a regional innovation strategy to develop new products and services which promote active and healthy ageing.

• The Livorno province in Italy has promoted economic activity for the over-50s through targeted training and senior apprenticeships, mid-life career advice and job guarantees through a range of public and private partners.

• Japan has developed a network of 1,600 “silver human resources centres” in municipalities across the country. In Toyama, for example, they support older people to maintain their involvement with regional agricultural industries.

These examples show that new approaches can create opportunities for older people to become critical actors in local economic development — as producers, consumers and investors — with broader economic benefits for populations as a whole, the report states.

Crucially, the report identifies four principles that underpin successful approaches to demographic ageing:

• Move beyond stereotypes by recognising that the diversity that exists across age cohorts transcends age-focused frameworks, and by viewing the ageing phenomenon as an opportunity rather than a social care problem.

• Develop multi-agency co-operation to promote lifelong adaptation, service improvement and pooled funding rather than just small-scale, targeted projects.

• Recognise older people as key co-producers of better economic and social outcomes.

• Long-term political commitment to strategic planning for demographic ageing, building on learning from local, national and international examples.

The field is wide open for innovation in adapting model initiatives for an ageing society to the local context. What is clear is that mobilising the silver generation for social renewal is still in its infancy in our society today.

R B Bhattacharjee is associate editor at The Edge Malaysia

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