In a commentary, SMU Senior Lecturer of Strategic Management Whitney Zhang argues that Singapore’s narrative on ageing remains rooted in a deficit model that focuses on the fiscal burden of a super-aged society, causing young people to view ageing through a singular lens of vulnerability and internalise it as a constraint on their own success. She said that society must shift from a “service-provider” mindset to a “collaborative ecosystem” approach, embracing old age as a vibrant and aspirational stage of life that contributes meaningfully to Singapore’s social and economic fabric. Drawing on examples from China and South Korea, she highlights seniors as contributors to economic growth, digital creation and lifestyle spending, and calls for schools, businesses and society to move away from the framing of old age as a burden and towards recognising it as a repository of wisdom capital.
