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Migrant Elderly Care Workers in Singapore (Assisted Living)
January 7 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
SEA Junction and the Mahidol Migration Centre – Joint Research Unit (MMC-JRU) in collaboration with the IPSR In-House Seminar has launched a series of monthly events titled “Wednesday SEA Mobilities,” which began in February 2022. The events were held on the Wednesday of every other month and we jointly hold seminars or panels discussing vast arrays of Southeast Asia’s contemporary mobility issues by experts, academics, practitioners, NGO workers, migrants, and people from the fields.
The first Wednesday SEA Mobilities event of 2026 will take place on 7 January 2026, from 15:00–16:00 (Bangkok time). The session brings together Dr. Belinda Wee, Co-founder of Good Shepherd Loft, St. Bernadette Lifestyle Village Assisted Living, and Dr. Sng Hock Lin, Chief of the Silver Generation Division at Singapore’s Agency for Integrated Care. It will be moderated by Dr. Rosalia Sciortino (IPSR, Mahidol University, and Director of SEA Junction). The discussion will take place in a guided Q&A format, rather than a formal presentation and will be held in English with Thai simultaneous interpretation. The online event will be broadcast on Zoom and also on the FB pages of IPSR and of SEA Junction.
Background
Singapore’s rapidly ageing population has led to growing policy attention on eldercare, assisted living and practice, with emerging models that extend beyond traditional nursing homes and individual domestic caregiving. One recent development in elderly care in Singapore is that The Ministry of Health (MOH) announced on Dec 10 that the Shared Stay-in Senior Caregiving Services, in which groups of seniors share a residence and receive basic daily support from trained caregiving staff, allowing them to age within the community rather than in institutions. This model was introduced after a sandbox initiative was launched in September 2023 and, following positive outcomes, has been formally adopted and supported by government measures, including subsidies for caregiver training and expanded foreign worker quotas for service providers, highlighting broader efforts to diversify care options and reinforce community-based eldercare in Singapore.
Within this context of expanding assisted living frameworks in Singapore, the roles of family caregivers and paid care workers, including migrant caregivers, are becoming increasingly central to care provision for older adults. Yet their roles remain unevenly recognised within formal healthcare and social protection systems, despite their growing importance to families and the state. This seminar examines the changing landscape of eldercare in Singapore through a focus on migrant care workers, situating their labour at the intersection of healthcare policy, family responsibility, and labour rights. It explores how migrant care labour is integrated, regulated, and protected within Singapore’s eldercare landscape.
Speakers:
Dr Belinda Wee is the co-founder and director of Good Shepherd Loft, St Bernadette Lifestyle Village and the Assisted Living Facilities Association of Singapore. Together with her husband, Dr Joseph Lee, she pioneered assisted living in Singapore in 2015 which was recently mainstreamed by the Ministry of Health.
Dr Sng Hock Lin is the Chief of Silver Generation Office, the outreach arm of the Agency for Integrated Care in Singapore. A leading advocate for active living and successful ageing, Hock Lin holds a PhD in Gerontology, SUSS and is an Alice Lim Memorial Fund Scholar. Hock Lin is also driving volunteerism as a national cause to empower seniors to take charge of their own well-being, inspiring community care efforts across the country to ensure our seniors live well and age gracefully.
Commentator
Dr.Stephanie Chok is the Executive Director of HOME (www.home.org.sg), an NGO dedicated to empowering and upholding the rights of migrant workers in Singapore. She also leads the organization’s research and advocacy efforts, which are directed towards promoting structural change to improve migrant workers’ rights and wellbeing.
Please contact us at sudarat.mus@mahidol.edu for information.
Organizers
SEA Junction
SEA Junction, established under the Thai non-profit organization Foundation for Southeast Asia Studies (ForSEA), aims to foster understanding and appreciation of Southeast Asia in all its socio-cultural dimensions, from arts and lifestyles to economy and development. Conveniently located at Room 408 of the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center or BACC (across MBK, BTS National Stadium), SEA Junction facilitates public access to knowledge resources and exchanges among students, practitioners and Southeast Asia lovers. For more information, see https://seajunction.org/ and join the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/1693058870976440/ and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @seajunction.
Mahidol Migration Center,Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR), Mahidol University
IPSR was established in 1971 and has become one of Asia’s premier population research and training hubs. The Institute conducts research and provides training in population, sexual and reproductive health and development with a focus on Thailand and throughout Asia, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of life for all. To further strengthen and re-focus these efforts, the Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR) launched Mahidol Migration Center (MMC) in 2010. Mahidol Migration Center (MMC) played a key role in the region to disseminate migration-related information more effectively. Its purposes are to gather and synthesize the large amount of migration data available; to collaborate with partners and organizations to form internal and international networks for theory, practice, and policy formulation; to act as a platform for advocacy and lasting change in migrant healthcare; and to assist in the prioritization of resources to improve both internal and international migrants’ physical and mental well-being .
put the facebook live link here- ask P’GG.
