Like I said, they don't. You can retire today. They decide when you get access to a national retirement plan. Citizens of the country vote for that plan and how it is implemented.

Couldn’t you say the same thing about social security or pensions? There is a lot of economic forces that direct people to work until a certain age, the government controlling a benefit is only one of them. As to why, you’ll need to dissect representative democracies in Singapore’s case.

You can retire whenever you want, but you specifically would probably die in the wilderness.