HIGH-FREQUENCY INTERNET SURVEY OF A PROBABILITY SAMPLE OF OLDER SINGAPOREANS: THE SINGAPORE LIFE PANEL®

Facing a rapidly ageing population, Singapore is presented with urgent policy challenges. Yet there is very little data on the economic, health and family circumstances of older Singaporeans. In response, the Centre for Research on the Economics of Ageing (CREA) at Singapore Management University has been collecting monthly data on a panel of Singaporeans aged between 50 and 70 years. We detail the methodology by which the Singapore Life Panel® (SLP) was constructed using a population-representative sampling frame from the Singapore Department of Statistics. Contact was made with 25,000 households through postal, phone and in-person canvassing. More than 15,200 respondents from over 11,500 households enrolled in the panel. Comparisons between SLP and official statistics show close matching on age, sex, marital status, ethnicity, education, labor force status, income and expenditure. This suggests that the panel is a representative of Singapore’s elderly population. Monthly surveys continue to be administered over the internet, supplemented by phone and in-person outreach to ensure the panel remains representative and hence reliable for informing policy makers. Response rates are remarkably stable at over 8000 per month. The SLP contains rich data on demographics, health status, socio-economic indicators, contact with government programmes and subjective perceptions and is likely to be a key resource for economic research into ageing in Singapore.

Economics of ageing: research area and perspectives

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the latest findings on the economic potential of ageing and compare them primarily from a consumables perspective. The relevant question relating to this research was: What are the economic consequences of the demographic development in relation to consumer demand for products and services in old age? Design/methodology/approach – Narrative systematic publications were thoroughly reviewed and collated. A systematic search was carried out in journals, books, databases, the internet as well as within the scientific community from November 2012 to May 2013. Findings – A total of 115 relevant scientific publications were identified in this review (from 1964 to 2013). In order to gain an actual overview of the relevant literature, the results show the most recent publications from 2000 to 2013. Research limitations/implications – There are three limitations within this paper: First, the search process used only four databases. Second, this review only took into account publications in English and German. Therefore, the review may fail to encompass all published literature. Finally, this study did not endeavour to evaluate the methodological quality of each scientific publication. Study findings were taken as reported. Originality/value – This paper aims at analysing the economic potentials of ageing primarily from the perspective of consumption. The focus of this economics of ageing investigation is on the “demography-related” consequences in terms of the demand behaviour of the older consumers (the elderly as potential buyers). The paper deals with all the “silver economy” as a cross-sector campaign and research area for economics of ageing – a still fairly young discipline, both in science and in practical applications.