Given the increasing length of life after retirement from work, it is important that the potential contribution of the elderly in the community be maximized, and that they be treated as a resource rather than a burden. In Western countries, efforts are increasingly being made to tap the abilities and interests of the aged through such programmes as retired executives' programmes in which retired executives provide voluntary assistance in the running and management of small businesses; foster grandparents' programmes in which elderly people can become surrogate grandparents to children or young people who lack close family or are estranged from close family for some reason; and involvement in a wide range of community activities and associations requiring the input of time, of which the elderly have more to spare than do younger people who are in the work-force or busy raising families.

In Southeast Asia, there is less “institutionalization” of the community role of old people, but because of the respect accorded to age, and the prevalence of community activities involving all age groups rather than age group-based activities characteristic of more highly urbanized societies, there is a more automatic involvement of the elderly in the affairs of the family and of the community. For example, in the Philippine survey, about 40 per cent of the elderly females reported that they spent most of their time caring for other family members.

Related to the role of the elderly in the community is the question of their leisure time activities. It is clear from Table 8.1 that listening to the radio and watching TV are important leisure time activities, being engaged in by roughly half the respondents in all countries, with little difference between the sexes. Talking with friends/neighbours occupies about a quarter of respondents in most countries, though fewer in Singapore and much more in Thailand. The importance of reading appears to differ quite markedly by country and sex, the differentials being linked, no doubt, to differentials in literacy.