POPULATION-ARGENTINA: Crisis Hits Elderly Especially Hard

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 12 2002 (IPS) - The woes of the growing number of people over 60 in Argentina have worsened with the country’s economic collapse, due to pensions that have shrunk to often ridiculously low levels because of the devaluation, a health system weakened by shortages of medicines, and a deterioration of the social safety net on which they could fall back.

Argentina has one of the highest proportions of elderly in Latin America, with 13.3 percent of its 37 million people currently over 60.

But many senior citizens complain about the treatment they receive at the hands of society. “Never before have older people been so mistreated as now,” Roque Casella, a 77-year-old retiree, told IPS as he waited in a long line outside a bank to cash his pension check.

In a study by the Secretariat for Social Promotion, 81 percent of respondents over 60 said they felt “mistreated by society.” They also harshly criticised the public health services in charge of providing health coverage to pensioners.

Casella, a widower with two grown children, one of whom is unemployed, barely scrapes by on his pension. The public health service in which he is registered and to which he contributed throughout his entire career as a self-employed worker is practically broke, and has no medicines to provide.

Gladys Alonso, 67, who was waiting alongside Casella, complained to IPS that “it’s as if they were just waiting for us to die.” She said she drew such a tiny pension that she was forced to stay home waiting for calls from a real estate office, to show apartments to potential buyers in order to earn some extra money.

But “now, with the crisis, the economy isn’t moving, and no one is calling anymore,” added an anguished Alonso, whose daughter and three grandchildren are in similarly dire financial straits.

The severe difficulties shared by the lion’s share of Argentina’s five million people over 60 are blamed on the lack of specific policies addressing the needs of the elderly in a country where this age group is growing fast, approaching the proportion seen in rich countries.

In western Europe and Japan, people over 60 represent 21 to 25 percent of the population, and in the United States they account for 16 percent, compared to 10 percent in China, eight percent in India, seven percent in Mexico and just four percent in Kenya.

There are more people over 60 than under 15 in western Europe and Japan, a phenomenon that will be seen in Argentina in less than 50 years, according to projections by the United Nations, which held its second World Assembly on Ageing in Madrid this week.

In Argentina, which is in the grip of its worst crisis in history, the elderly are facing urgent problems. Roughly 15 percent receive the minimum pension, which amounts to only half of the income needed to survive. Of the remaining 85 percent, 66 percent draw pensions of less than 300 pesos a month (worth 110 dollars at the current exchange rate).

That has driven an enormous number of older people to seek work, in a country where unemployment has soared to nearly 25 percent, and 40 percent of the population has slipped below the poverty line.

In addition, 35 percent of people over 60 fall outside the social security system, according to a study by the public University of Buenos Aires.

Organisations of pensioners are fighting for their right to health coverage, such as anti-flu vaccines, because local authorities decided that only half of the elderly would receive the vaccines, due to the public health system’s shortage of funds.

One of the factors contributing to the ageing of the Argentine population is the drop in the birth rate, a process seen since the end of the 19th century, but which has accelerated in the past few years due to the economic crisis, according to experts like Susana Torrado.

“Due to the crisis, people are having less kids, and the drop in the birth rate, added to the advances made in the fight against illness, has led to a rise in the proportion of elderly,” said Torrado, a demographer.

However, a prolongation of life is sometimes accompanied by a decline in quality of life.

A four-year recession that culminated in the collapse of the economy and the toppling of two presidents in late December and early January not only led to an acceleration of the ageing of the Argentine population due to a faster decline in the birth rate, but to a sharp deterioration in the living standards of the elderly as well.

A report carried out in 2001 by the Secretariat for Senior Citizens revealed that one out of five elderly people are undernourished.

The inability to afford a decent diet and the fact that many elderly people are physically unable to prepare balanced meals, or simply do not know how to do so, means 20 percent consume less than 1,000 calories a day – half of what the Pan-American Health Organisation recommends for people over 60 in order to avoid preventible diseases.

In crisis conditions, the elderly often lose their status as people in need of protection and care. The most mobile and healthiest senior citizens in Argentina, especially women, often end up working twice as hard at home, providing assistance to their grown-up children and helping to raise their grandchildren.

Ads for pharmaceutical products often target the more active elderly women. In one radio spot, for example, an older woman frets that her daughter would like her to embroider her grandson’s name on his school uniform, but that she suffers from joint pain.

“The pain was unbearable, and my daughter and son-in-law asked me to also embroider the last name,” says the woman. She adds, however, that after taking a particular anti-inflammatory medicine, she was not only able to do what her daughter had asked of her, but much more.

Another ad shows an older woman cooking for the entire family – her children and grandchildren – and having to take a pain-killer to relieve her headache and fatigue. But after popping the pill, she even has the energy to serve her children’s friends, who have unexpectedly shown up for dinner.

In the past few months, new problems have compounded the existing ones. Elderly people who made sure to save up money in case their pensions were too small are now unable to withdraw their savings due to the partial freeze on accounts in place since early December, aimed at preventing a run on banks.

According to the law, the elderly are to receive priority treatment with respect to gaining access to their money. Theoretically, they should be allowed to transfer their fixed term deposits to savings accounts, from which they should be able to withdraw monthly installments of up to 1,200 dollars.

However, when senior citizens visit their banks, they find that even if they bring along a lawyer – which most cannot afford to do – they are not always allowed to withdraw part of their savings.