Extend retirement age as life expectancy increases

Extend retirement age as life expectancy increases

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia should extend the mandatory retirement age from 55 at present to 65, given that the average life expectancy has now increased to 65, a leading psychiatrist says.

Prof. Dadang Harawi of the University of Indonesia in Jakarta said yesterday that many people in Indonesia are not prepared to retire at the age of 55 because they feel they're strong enough to continue working.

Speaking during a seminar on medical care for retired people, Dadang said people should mentally be prepared for this eventuality or otherwise they could have a difficult time in adjusting to a new life.

The seminar was organized by PT Astek, the state workers' insurance company, and was attended by around 100 participants, largely representatives from large companies in Indonesia.

Dadang said retired people who are particularly susceptible to mental disorders.

"Many people suffer from mental disorders after retiring by failing to adjust to their new environment," said the chairman of the Association of Indonesian Psychiatrists.

Many of these people might retire physically healthy but their condition could degenerate quickly because they felt that they were being hunted by a ghost coming to fetch them for death, he said.

Dadang said mental problems associated with retirement are also serious problems in industrialized countries, especially the United States and Japan.

"Suicide, stress and depression are some of the top killers in the two countries, along with heart disease, cancer, liver and traffic accidents," he said.

A person who is mentally unprepared to begin their retirement could easily lose self-confidence and develop a fear of dying and experience various forms of depression such as cardiac-phobia, schizophrenia and stress, he said. "Such conditions often lead to cardiovascular illness. Some of them even commit suicide."

Dadang suggested that people reaching retirement age should strive to remain creative and innovative. "They should also indulge more in social and religious activities to meet their spiritual needs," he said.

He said one of the most difficult adjustments that a person might encounter upon retiring is adjusting their budget because in most cases their incomes will fall.

On a totally different note, M. Badawi, chief of the pension fund section of PT Astek's Jakarta branch, told the seminar that many employers are not managing the pension funds of their employees properly.

Badawi could not rule out manipulations either.

"Many employers are violating the law on the social security program by registering only some of their employers in the program, or providing deceitful reports to the company (PT Astek) on their wages," he said. "This way, employers hope to pay less than what they actually should."

The 1993 law requires workers to pay at least two percent of their salaries to a pension fund and employers to contribute at least 3.7 percent of the salaries to the same fund. (rms)