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)