It’s not how old you are, it’s how you are old. State discourse on successful ageing in Singapore

ABSTRACT

According to Asher and Nandy, the global population of seniors will increase to 1.41 million in 2030 and is predicted to further grow to 2 billion by 2050. This will cause a fundamental change in the world’s ageing structure, with the number of seniors equal to the child population (0–14 years). Today, seniors are being encouraged to be part of the workforce for as long as possible to cater for this shift. One of the means to achieve this is to stay healthy through regular engagement in physical activity. This paper takes Singapore as a case study. Its purpose is to examine the relationship between the discourses on successful ageing, physical activity and employment in Singapore and how these are embodied by local seniors in their everyday lives. It asks whether this demographic group should be predominantly doing menial work and should their salaries be significantly lower than their younger counterparts? Is it right to use a discourse that links work to physical activity, and therefore health, and to make this a part of ageing successfully?

KEYWORDS:

• Physical activity
• successful ageing
• technologies of domination
• technologies of the self

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Mark Brooke has published widely in the field of applied linguistics, particularly Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and in the field of the Sociology of Sport. Most recently, he has published a book chapter on CLIL in an edited volume entitled English language education in a global world: Practices, issues and challenges and two articles in the Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science, Routledge. He is particularly interested in researching identity construction through sport. He is also particularly interested in researching how English language students can learn how to write academic genres and develop their general academic language and research skills through learning a subject such as the sociology of sport. Prior to joining NUS, Mark worked as a teacher trainer at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and as a Lecturer at City University of Hong Kong.