The world's population is ageing fast. A similar trend also can be observed in Singapore. Singapore's life expectancy is one of the highest in the world. Its older population is projected to grow from 814,000(15% of population) in 2012 to 1,308,000(28%) by 2050, even faster than Japan. At this rate of growth, Singapore is anticipated to become the world's 4th 'oldest' country in the next three to four decades.
As years pass, I also found that there is a lot of the elderly works as a cleaner in Singapore. We can always see them in the hawker center, park, shopping complex, office... Maybe some elderly feel bored during their retirement so they choose to work as cleaner instead of stay alone at home, but the physical condition is quite hard to work as a cleaner. I think this phenomenon of so many elderly working as a cleaner is not good.
Therefore, we focus on the topic of how to improve the working condition of the elderly in the cleaning industry.
After research, we found there a number of common problems facing elderly worker who works as a cleaner. Cleaning work is demanding and labor intensive so many tasks involve heavy manual work. These will make our body tiring and easily to be hurt after long working time especially to the elderly because their physical is weaker. Most of the elderly cleaners' back and neck were arching badly. One of the problems they faced is they have no place to rest well during their resting time, they can only squeeze in the store room which was placed with cleaning equipment.
Sources:
Yuen, Belinda, and Withanage, Chathura. “Smart Designs for An Ageing Population”. The Straits Times. 17 Nov. 2015
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