New findings from the Manulife Asia Care Survey 2026 point to a familiar pressure many Singaporean households already feel: adults in their twenties and early thirties are directing about 40% of their monthly income towards supporting parents and siblings, and it is quietly pushing their own retirement, insurance and savings plans further out. Around three in four respondents under 35 in Singapore say those family responsibilities are getting in the way of their long-term readiness — noticeably above the regional average.
The tension in the data is that independence is still the goal. Roughly nine in ten Singaporeans surveyed say they want to remain self-sufficient for as long as possible, and a majority define a good long life as not becoming a burden to loved ones. Yet the same respondents are absorbing today's caregiving costs so heavily that some are even delaying their own medical check-ups — a pattern the survey flags most strongly among the youngest adults.
At StickieMonies, we see this play out constantly with clients in their late twenties to early forties. The instinct to give generously to parents is right — but without structure, it usually crowds out three things at once: emergency cash, protection cover, and any consistent investing. The result is a household that looks stable month to month, but has no real cushion if a parent's health event, a retrenchment, or a critical illness lands on top of the existing commitments.
The planning fix is rarely to give parents less. It's to give the plan more structure. That typically means ring-fencing a defined family contribution as a line item (not a residual), reviewing whether hospitalisation and critical illness cover on both the client and their parents is right-sized for the household, and automating even a modest retirement contribution before lifestyle spending. Depending on individual circumstances and risk appetite, options families often consider include voluntary CPF top-ups and diversified long-term investing — each with their own trade-offs around liquidity, market risk and non-guaranteed returns, which is why they should be discussed with a financial adviser before acting.
The survey also hints at where the next generation is heading: more Singaporeans say they are moving beyond savings alone, spreading across asset classes and leaning into income-generating investments to fund a longer life. Life expectancy here is now near 84, so the plan needs to comfortably cover three or more decades after work — a horizon that rewards starting small and early far more than starting big and late.
If you're the person in your family holding a lot of this up, it is worth having someone map it out with you — what to keep giving, what to protect against, and what to quietly start building for yourself. We're glad to walk through that conversation. The original Business Times report is linked below.