Couples Supported by One Person's CPF LIFE Payout

3 Assoc Prof Daniel Goh Pei Siong asked the Minister for Manpower how many couples aged 65 years and above are currently supported by only one CPF LIFE payout and how many of the spouses not receiving such payouts are women.

The Second Minister for Manpower (Mrs Josephine Teo) (for the Minister for Manpower): Mr Deputy Speaker, first let me clarify that the Central Provident Fund (CPF) LIFE scheme is only mandatory for cohorts who turned 55 from 2013 or, in other words, those cohorts turning 65 from 2023. Older cohorts can opt in to CPF LIFE on a voluntary basis, but most of them are still under the Retirement Sum Scheme (RSS), which does not provide lifelong payouts.

As CPF accounts are maintained and managed as individual accounts, we do not have data on CPF accounts by households and couples. For those aged 65 in 2018, the average CPF balance when they reached their Payout Eligibility Age of 64 in 2017 was $118,000 for males and $91,500 for females. This could reflect social norms in the past where many women were full-time caregivers and either did not work or worked irregularly and hence, would have less CPF.

Assoc Prof Daniel Goh Pei Siong (Non-Constituency Member): I thank the Minister. I should have written the question as a projection.

Will the Ministry consider as a kind of scheme for the future that will allow the transfer of ownership of CPF LIFE from the owner to the spouse, just in case the owner passes on, considering that a lot of spouses, which could be mostly women, would be left without income if the spouse were to pass on early?

Mrs Josephine Teo: To some extent, members can already exercise an option to do so, so that their spouses who they expect to outlive them can have better income streams after they pass on. What we have done is to make it easier for members to transfer their CPF savings and to make cash top-ups to their spouses' accounts, so that the spouses too can get their own stream of income or larger stream of income payouts in retirement.

What I can share with you is that the various enhancements that have been made to the rules surrounding transfers and cash top-ups have had an effect. If you look at the data in 2012, the transfers and top-ups to spouses amounted to about $50 million. And then, if you fast forward to 2016, that amount of cash top-ups and transfers had quadrupled. It is certainly more than $200 million. The number of cash top-ups and transfers received by spouses in 2016 came to about 15,000. A good number of them, as a result of these transfers and top-ups, were able to achieve better retirement adequacy.

To the Member's question, if I understand correctly, what about the remaining stream-outs that a member could have received, had he stayed alive? Can that be transferred? I think from an actuarial standpoint, that would be very difficult. Because then in that sense, what the actuaries will have to take into account is not one person's expected lifespan but two persons' expected lifespans. And that would differ from couple to couple. It is already challenging enough to try and estimate for each person. When you add the complexity of a couple, I think that makes it much harder.

But I think what we will continue to do is to review the rules from time to time and where it is possible to do so, make it easier for people to make cash top-ups or transfers to their spouses.

I should also add that it is not just spouses who can make transfers and cash top-ups. We made it easier for children to do so. This is all part of enhancing the family support for retirement adequacy.