Mr Baey Yam Keng, a youthful Tanjong Pagar GRC MP, said he had encountered elderly women too bashful to be photographed as they pictured themselves as lao chabo, or old women in Hokkien.

Unlike more active seniors elsewhere, old folk here tend to confine themselves to the home, void deck or coffee shop.

Their low activity and visibility can be traced to mindsets, physical barriers and financial constraints, he noted.

In contrast, while on a cruise with his wife to mark their 10th wedding anniversary, the 37-year-old MP met very old Australians.

They were neither well-off nor extremely fit, but they had still taken the cruise, which was part of a longer, demanding self-drive caravan holiday.

Mr Baey suggested a three-in-one approach to change mindsets, which involved society, families and the Government.

For instance, aged parents can be exposed to 'new experiences in life'.

The Government can ensure that there is no age discrimination, for example by abolishing the age requirements for some driving licences.

The Traffic Police and agencies can identify specific qualifying criteria for motorists instead, he said.

'Let us not use age as a convenient benchmark which becomes a case for discrimination,' he said.

Mr Sam Tan, 49, his Tanjong Pagar GRC colleague, focused instead on dying with dignity.

He told the House about a block in Chinatown where the old folk made death pacts with one another: 'If you go first, I'll take care of your funeral. If I go first, you take care of mine.'

Stressing that no one needed to die alone, he urged a 'collective initiative': create a network of friends and neighbours to stay in touch with the immobile and elderly; start a culture of eulogising those in the community who die; and value the old, including in the way older workers are paid.

If this works, then eulogies will not be about mourning the old but 'celebrating their full and meaningful lives', he said.