The numbers are chilling. 22,000 seniors in single households is a rise of 47% in 5 years (see Straits Times Mon 7 Aug 2006, Review Section, Page 21. If you take away 4,000 singles you potentially have at least 18,000 couples assuming both are seniors.
How many senior studios are on plan? 200, 300 or 1,000 tops for the NEXT 5 years?! The global aging is onto us. Not in drips but like the smashing of a meteorite to ground. Just look at a "modern" city like Sydney.
There are 700 retirement villages in NSW alone supporting supporting 35,000 residents of age range 70 to 75. The residents break up into 50% female and 10% couples. If Singapore is to come to par with Aussie retirement lifestyle, then we need to project RVs for a 180,000 senior residents.
The maths shouldn’t surprise anyone. Everybody knows that there are more kangaroos then people down under. We may be small in size but we have 4 million smiles. The news is shocking made all the worse by the fact that we consider senior at ages above 55 or 62 depending on what you are looking for.
Look at the bright side. Silverhairs should have no problem finding recruits. Also better step on the accelerator on finding the ideal RV. Long quesues expected anytime soon.
