Despite being a young city-state, Singapore has one of the most rapidly ageing populations in the world. The proportion of residents aged 65 years and above increased from 7.2% in 2000 to 16% in 2021. Furthermore, the old-age support ratio of residents, which is the ratio of residents aged 20–64 years for each resident aged 65 years and over declined from 13.5 in 1970s to 4.0 in 2021. Such an imbalance can result in social isolation and depression in older adults.
To address this issue, Professor Ho Lynn-Ee Elaine examines the social and geographical characteristics of older adults’ social networks to understand how social networks may be shaped by the societal and physical environment in which seniors reside. To do this, social network analysis is combined with qualitative research and Geographic Information Science (GIS). This work, titled ‘Ageing and Social Networks: Mapping the Lifeworlds of Older Singaporeans’ is funded by the Social Science Research Council’s Thematic Grant.
Prof Ho hopes that her studies will expand knowledge on ageing and social network theories, as well as advance qualitative GIS methods so that they can be integrated into survey research.
With an increasing number of older adults moving across borders to provide or receive care, Prof Ho also looks beyond Singapore to focus on Transnational Relations, Ageing and Care Ethics (TRACE). Here, she investigates how global care circulations mediate experiences of ageing and what this means for transnational relations and care ethics. The TRACE project considers three interrelated aspects of care circulation: grandparenting migration; caring for the aged and the left-behind care chains of foreign carers; and retirement migration. By studying how ageing is experienced across national borders and through transnationalism, Prof Ho hopes to develop a grounded understanding of care relations that is useful for (re)conceptualising care ethics in transnational contexts.
Citizens in Motion: A scholarly understanding of migration which is a hotly contested topic and one that is closely connected to citizenship
A Lien Foundation study found that more facilities or subsidies are needed for the rapidly aging population in Singapore.
Learn more about the researcher behind the study of citizenship as a result of migration, and transnational ageing and care in Asia-Pacific
Ho, E. L. E., Liew, J. A., Zhou, G., Chiu, T. Y., Yeoh, B. S., & Huang, S. (2021). Shared spaces and “throwntogetherness” in later life: A qualitative GIS study of non-migrant and migrant older adults in Singapore. Geoforum, 124, 132-143.
Ho, E. L. E., & Ting, W. C. (2021). Informality during migration,“conversion” within and across national spaces: Eliciting moral ambivalence among informal brokers. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 46 (4), 944-957.
Ho, E. L. E., Zhou, G., Liew, J. A., Chiu, T. Y., Huang, S., & Yeoh, B. S. (2021). Webs of care: qualitative GIS research on aging, mobility, and care relations in Singapore. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111 (5), 1462-1482.
Ho, E. L. E., & Chiu, T. Y. (2020). Transnational ageing and “care technologies”: Chinese grandparenting migrants in Singapore and Sydney. Population, Space and Place, 26 (7), e2365.
Ho, E.L.E. and Huang, S. (2018) Care Where You Are: Enabling Singaporeans to Age Well in Place, Singapore: Straits Times Press
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