2023-09-04 21:04:44
2023-09-05 05:04 United Daily News reporter Zhong Zhanghan / special report “Middle-aged quicksand”, while taking care of the degenerated old people, and taking care of their children, can only struggle near the poverty line, “Retirement…
In mid-July, Williams, a retired financial executive, returned to Taiwan for vacation from the United States. He accidentally discovered that his old colleague Richard, who worked hard together when he was young, was still running around Taiwan in his 50s to save his pension. Not only his old mother Medical and Nursing Center expenses, and children in their thirties gave up self-reliance and lived at home, asking Dad from time to time: “Do you want to pay for me to buy a house?”
“Taiwan has become like this?” Williams couldn’t believe it.
Williams volunteered to go to the United States to station abroad more than 20 years ago. Later, he took advantage of the financial turmoil and economic downturn to buy a few small apartments. Now he immigrates to the United States and collects rent.
On the other hand, Richard, who has worked hard for half his life in Taiwan, is now nearly 60 years old and dare not retire. Every day he opens his eyes and worries about the future of his elderly mother and children. Every waking moment is a labor of endless hell.
Richard said helplessly that he is a “quicksand middle-aged person”, that is, a middle-aged person between the ages of forty and fifty-nine. While taking care of the degenerated elderly and taking care of his children, he can only struggle near the poverty line. ” Retirement is nowhere in sight.”
According to the population estimation report issued by the National Development Council, Taiwan will enter a super-aged society in two years (2025), and the population over 65 years old will account for more than 20% of the total population. But the increase in the elderly population does not mean that old people have the ability to retire. Data from the National Development Council shows that in the future, nearly half of Taiwan’s working-age population will be middle-aged and elderly.
The elderly not only have to take care of the elderly, but also continue to work. Richard lamented that with Taiwan’s rising housing prices and prices, he might have to “fight” before the age of 70. He and his friends of the same age did not dare to retire. I have to worry about my children’s low salary and unwillingness to rely on themselves. When I was a student, I asked him to buy a computer and subsidize overseas travel.
“The sandwich generation that can’t retire,” he said, is the most “sorrowful” thing about this generation.
Retirement pension U.S. elderly population quicksand middle-aged middle-aged and elderly
further reading
1693935280
#quicksand #middleaged #struggles #poverty #line #retires #indefinitely #Poverty #Taiwan #finds #solution