47 percent of parents with married children are living with their children, while 21 percent live close by within the same town, said National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan in a blog post yesterday.
The results were gathered from about 2,000 Singaporeans in a door-to-door survey commissioned by MND. The representative sample included both unmarried and married adult children and elderly parents.
“The reasons offered for the arrangement are good ones: children are close to their parents and wish to look after them in their old age; parents are close to their children and could also help look after their grandchildren,” he wrote.
Among the young unmarried participants, 55 percent of them plan to live together with their parents, and 29 percent want to live close by within the same town after their marriage.
Mr Khaw said the survey results show there is room for the government to do more to help extended families live nearer. “MND will study the survey findings in greater detail, and together with the feedback we have received from our housing conversations, to see how best we can help fulfil Singaporeans’ aspirations to live near their extended families for better mutual care and support,” he added.
Separately, Mr Khaw was present at MND’s fourth and final Housing Conversations on "Closer Families, Stronger Ties".
According to media reports, he said one way to help families stay closer is by incentivising older couples to move out of mature estates and into non-mature estates to live near or with their married children.
This would free up resale flats for children who want to live near their parents in mature estates. “If some parents for various reasons are quite prepared to leave their comfortable surroundings in a mature estate to non-mature estates with their children, I think we should try to facilitate and, perhaps, even reward them,” he said.
Muneerah Bee, Senior Journalist at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact her about this or other stories email muneerah@propertyguru.com.sg
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