Regardless of rain or shine, 74-year-old Madam Ya Xiang collects cardboards along the streets of Toa Payoh Lorong 7 every afternoon.
Madam Ya Xiang has been a cardboard collector for the past 40 years. Being a sister to a sickly brother, Madam Ya Xiang collects and sells cardboards everyday in hope to earn sufficient income to support her family's daily living and her brother's costly medical fees.
Upon retirement, Madam Ya Xiang's employment life has not been rosy. She faces difficulties securing a job due to factors, such as ageism in the workforce and mismatch of skills.
Ageism in the workforce
Local employers tend to discriminate against older workers and reject senior job applicants due to negative prejudices that they have against seniors. These prejudices include beliefs that senior workers are unproductive, less adaptable, less capable, and less trainable than younger employees (My Career Future, n.d.; Ong, 2014). As a result, many seniors face difficulties getting employed. Additionally, research found that even if seniors are employed, they are less likely to receive training opportunities (Randstad, 2020), and are at higher risks of being retrenched (Ching, 2020; Cheng, 2019).
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Mismatch of skills
Due to the transformation of the world economy and industrial revolution, Singapore's modern education revolves around technological education to cater to our digitalised economy (Tan et al, 2016). However, in the past, Singapore’s education system only emphasized on technical education to meet the demand of an export-oriented economy (Tan et al., 2016). As such, the difference in education contributes to the mismatch of skills amongst seniors. Furthermore, elder women are more likely to have a mismatch of skills due to the prevalence of sexism in the past centuries. In the past, girls were given lesser opportunities to pursue an education as they were expected to be home takers of their families (Women's Action, n.d.). As such, many elder women lack the professional knowledge and skills needed in the workforce and are confronted with major difficulties while looking for a job.
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Meet
Madam Ya Xiang
To overcome the challenges of securing employment and earning an income, Madam Ya Xiang utilized her strengths to become a cardboard collector. Some of her strengths include the following:
Determination
Madam Ya Xiang has strong determination to earn an income to support her sickly brother.
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Resilience
Madam Ya Xiang is both physically and mentally resilient. In the physical aspect, she has a strong stamina that allows her to overcome far distances. Mentally, she is able to cope and make positive adjustments to adversity. This is due to her positive mindset and her strong sense of belief in herself.
Professional Knowledge
Madam Ya Xiang is well equipped with professional knowledge in the cardboard collection field. She knows the navigations to collect and sell cardboards in the Toa Payoh neighborhood, the types of cardboards that can be collected and sold, and ways to package collected cardboard prior to selling them.
However, upon being a cardboard collector, Madam Ya Xiang's employment life has not been much rosy either.
Well, no job is easy – Even for cardboard collectors. As a cardboard collector, Madam Ya Xiang faces many challenges. One major challenge that Madam Ya Xiang faces would be having financial security. Seniors, aged 65 and above, require at least $1,379 a month to meet their basic needs (Teo & Ng, 2019). However, cardboard collectors, including Madam Ya Xiang, only earn approximately $300 every month, an amount insufficient to meet their basic needs. Madam Ya Xiang shared that she earns approximately $4 to $8 daily. She collects and sells cardboards for 2 rounds every day. For each round of cardboards she collects, she earns only $3 to $4. The low wage of cardboard collectors can be attributed to the low market rate for cardboards ($0.04/Kilogram). With such a low market rate, it is unfeasible for cardboard collectors to earn $1,397 because they would have to sell at least 1,112 kilograms of cardboards every day (an impossible figure to achieve), to earn such a huge amount (Feng, 2019).
(Seedly, n.d.)
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(Tan, 2022)
As such, the lack of money is a constant worry for Madam Ya Xiang, and she has to take on other jobs, such as selling newspapers, in the evening to make ends meet.
To make her job tougher, Madam Ya Xiang also has to deal with society’s negative prejudice against cardboard collectors. In a first world country like Singapore, cardboard collecting is a job that is highly frowned upon as it is perceived as a “dirty job”. This negative perception derives from the act of picking up unwanted items that others dispose of, an act against Singapore's social norms. The prejudicial attitude that society has of cardboard collecting has a detrimental impact on cardboard collectors as they are frequently looked down upon by others. Madam Ya Xiang shared that she would often receive “dirty looks” of belittlement from the public. She also observed that people tend to distance themselves from her when they heard that she collects cardboards for a living.
(Tan, 2022)
Moreover, meeting the physical demands of the job is another challenge that Madam Ya Xiang faces. Cardboard collection points are often located at remote and inaccessible areas of neighborhoods. Hence, cardboard collectors have to walk far distances, while pushing their heavy carts of cardboards, to sell their collected cardboards. This leaves, many, including Madam Ya Xiang, to experience pain and aches in their lower limbs.
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That's not it. With cardboard collection points being located in remote areas, another challenge that Madam Ya Xiang and many cardboard collectors have to conquer would be ensuring their safety. Many remote areas, such as Toa Payoh Industrial Park, lack traffic lights and safe and accessible routes. As a result, cardboard collectors like Madam Ya Xiang have to risk their safety to cut through car parks and main roads to reach their destination. Having taken inaccessible routes, Madam Ya Xiang shared that she was once involved in a car accident on her way to a cardboard collection point as a car driver failed to notice her walking on the main road. Hence, this shows that her safety is at stake when she is on the job.
(Tan, 2022)
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Thankfully, Madam Ya Xiang is able to overcome most of the challenges she faces using her strengths.
Madam Ya Xiang’s determination and mental resilience helped her to push through the harsh treatment of society. Despite being prejudiced against by society, Madam Ya Xiang shared that she would always engage in positive thinking and remind herself of her mission to earn sufficient money to support her brother’s medical fees. According to Madam Ya Xiang, doing so helps her to ignore and overcome the degrading treatments of others as she would refocus on her goals. Moreover, to meet the physical demands of her job, Madam Ya Xiang makes good use of her physical stamina. Though when feeling tired, she would also remain determined and resilient, pushing through negative thoughts of giving up. As such, Madam Ya Xiang’s assets helped her to meet the physical demands of the job and stand strong despite society's prejudice against her.
However, two challenges are left untackled – Ensuring physical safety and financial security.
Despite being able to tackle the majority of the challenges she faces using her strengths, Madam Ya Xiang faces difficulties ensuring her safety and financial security because of environmental barriers, such as low market rates for cardboards and the lack of safety infrastructures. Nevertheless, Madam Ya Xiang remains resilient and utilized other strengths to overcome impacts of the unresolved challenges. To prevent experiencing financial issues, Madam Ya Xiang utilizes her problem-solving and financial management skills. She efficiently seeks ways to earn more money and effectively manages her earned funds to ensure that she is able to financially support her family's daily living and expenses. Additionally, to ensure her physical safety, Madam Ya Xiang relies on another strength – her sociable nature. With her sociable personality, Madam Ya Xiang would mingle and make connections with stakeholders of the neighborhood, such as shop vendors and members of the public. The connections Madam Ya Xiang established helps to ensure her safety as those she acquainted with would often help to lookout for her safety and well-being.
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However, not all cardboard collectors are as resilient and resourceful as Madam Ya Xiang. Many cardboard collectors face difficulties coping with financial insecurity and ensuring their physical safety. As a result, they could only afford to consume a meal a day by eating others' unwanted leftover food (KindnessSG, 2017), and face high risks of being involved in traffic accidents (The New Paper, 2014). As such, it is hoped that measures can be taken to ensure the financial security and safety of cardboard collectors, to empower them to continue using their strengths to acquire their livelihood.
Would like to find out more about Madam Ya Xiang? Keen to learn a possible solution that tackles the aforementioned environmental barriers while empowering cardboard collectors?
Watch the video that my team and I had produced! The video shares Madam Ya Xiang's strengths and the barriers that she faces. It also includes a proposed solution that strives to empower cardboard collectors in tackling the barriers they face.
