A Brazilian couple and their two children take part in an outdoor activity at a school in the city of São Paulo. Credit: Escola Meu Castelinho

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 2 2024 (IPS)

Large families are already a relic of the past in Latin America and the Caribbean, as a result of modernisation and the growth of the economy and the labour force. Now, the region faces an ageing population and migratory movements.

In the region, “fertility rate has fallen from 5.8 children per woman in 1950 to 1.8 in 2024. The largest drop in fertility was between 1950 and 2024 (-68.4% versus -52.6% worldwide),” Simone Cecchini, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre, told IPS from Santiago de Chile.

“Improvements in education levels, living conditions, urbanisation, the empowerment of women and their incorporation into the workforce have favoured the option to reduce the number of children,” said Cecchini, whose centre is part of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Martha Marcondes, an educator from the Brazilian city of São Paulo, tells IPS how the number of children has been changing in her family, reflecting regional behaviour.

“My great-grandmother had 14 children, and life was dedicated to them; my grandmother thought differently in her time and only had four; my mother had three, and pregnant for a fourth time, she chose to have an abortion,” she explains.“Improvements in education levels, living conditions, urbanisation, the empowerment of women and their incorporation into the workforce have favoured the option to reduce the number of children”: Simone Cecchini.

Marcondes only had one daughter, because “we liked the idea of a second child, but my husband and I sat down and decided not to have any more. My daughter, who is 22 and studies International Relations, is focused on her career and travelling and does not plan to have children”.

Most of her daughter’s classmates are also only children or at most have one sibling. “Having fewer children is a way of being able to provide a better life for the ones you do have,” says Marcondes.

Couples like Tamara and Héctor – they prefer not to disclose their surnames – agree. She is a pastry chef and he is a firefighter in Ciudad Guayana, in southeastern Venezuela, with a 10-year-old daughter.

“With just enough to pay for school and support ourselves, we don’t have a house or a car. Covering expenses in Venezuela is increasingly difficult, income is very low, so years ago I told Héctor: no more children,” she told IPS from her home town.

Demographer Anitza Freitez, head of the Department of Demographic Studies at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, confirmed to IPS that “the experiences analysed in countries in crisis show that the situation of deprivation in these contexts encourages people to avoid having children.

Cecchini notes that “as people become more educated and wealthier, they choose to have fewer children. This choice has been made possible by greater access to sexual and reproductive health and the use of modern contraceptives, which have also lowered adolescent fertility”.

He notes that while the region’s adolescent fertility rate (50.5 children per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 2024) is down from the recent past (in 2010 the rate was 73.1 children), it is nevertheless well above the global average (40.7).

A large family in Peru, which are becoming increasingly rare in Latin America and the Caribbean as modernising trends in the region continue. Credit: MSC

Ageing and the economy

The fall in fertility is causing strong changes in the population’s age structure, with a sharp decline in the share of children and a steady increase in that of older adults.

The average household size is also decreasing, from 4.3 persons in 2000 to 3.4 persons in 2022, according to ECLAC data for 20 Latin American countries, while longevity is increasing.

The average life expectancy at birth for both sexes in Latin America and the Caribbean was only 49 years in 1950 and has reached 76 years in 2024.

As a result of declining fertility and increasing life expectancy, 95 million people aged 60 and over will live in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024, representing 14.2% of the total population. In 2030 there will be 114 million, 16.6% of the total population.

In particular, the group of people aged 80 and over is projected to grow strongly, from 12.5 million in 2024 to 16.3 million in 2030.

The declining birth rate and increasing life expectancy lead to a growth in the older population. Credit: PUC Chile

Cecchini argues that ageing populations and shrinking family sizes are reshaping economies and societies, with their burden of challenges and opportunities.

Ageing, he said, “holds challenges for public policies on social protection, health, care, as well as the labour market. Universal coverage of social protection or health care is still not provided”, and the increase in the older population sharply increases the demand on these systems.

It also increases the need for care, particularly long-term. As the traditional model of care based on women’s unpaid work within large families is no longer sustainable, “public policy measures are also needed in this area,” Cecchini stressed.

But on the opportunity side, older people are increasingly demanding products and services, which can hold benefits for markets.

The ‘silver economy’ – focused on the needs and demands of older people – brings opportunities in fields such as tourism, entertainment, telemedicine, information and communication technologies, smart home systems, healthcare, and home care, the expert says.

“New jobs in these sectors, especially in health and care, will be created as a result of population ageing,” he said.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted within the United Nations 2030 Agenda, do not set targets for fertility rates, but can benefit from reductions, such as reducing poverty by having more people in the workforce with fewer dependents.

A Warao indigenous family from Venezuela arriving in the city of Boa Vista, northern Brazil. Credit: UNHCR

Demographic dividend and migration

Population ageing and declining fertility impact on the demographic dividend, the window of opportunity for economic growth and poverty reduction due to the higher growth of the population in the most productive age group, between 15 and 64, relative to the dependent population.

This segment of the population averages 68% of the total in the region, according to World Bank figures, with some countries in the English-speaking Caribbean, Brazil and Colombia above the average, and others below, such as Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

The foreseeable duration of this dividend varies widely across the region – the longest in Bolivia, the shortest in Uruguay – as it depends on the pace of the ageing process, determined by declining mortality, declining fertility and migratory processes.

“But we must always remember that the demographic dividend is only an opportunity, which must be taken advantage of with appropriate public policies, such as investment in the human capacities of young people and the promotion of gender equality in the labour market,” stressed Cecchini.

Migration has a major impact on countries such as Cuba, where more than 800,000 people have left in the last two years, and Venezuela, which has seen more than seven million of its nationals leave in the last decade.

“The decline in fertility in a country like Venezuela is combined with a migratory process, which translates into a loss of the demographic dividend and an ageing population,” said Freitez.

She emphasizes that this process is occurring “in a country where ageing is not at the forefront of public policy. One example is that pensions received by the elderly are not even minimally sufficient to cover some needs, and public health is very deficient”.

Old-age pensions in Venezuela are pegged to the minimum wage, which is less than four dollars a month, although some groups of pensioners occasionally receive bonuses for a few dollars more.

“The entire burden then falls on a family whose structure has been transformed, as more than one million households (of the slightly more than six million in Venezuela) have experienced the migration of some of their members, becoming transnational families,” Freitez said.

Whether due to this dispersion, reduction in fertility rates, progress of modernisation and ageing, the large families that characterised life and tradition in Latin America have now become museum pieces.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the needs of the ageing population in various African countries were not adequately addressed. However, since the pandemic a recent survey has shown that the pandemic has further compounded the existing health challenges, further increasing neglect of older persons.Credit: Dolphin Emali/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 2020 (IPS)

Nearly three quarters of respondents in a survey across 18 African countries have claimed that their countries’ COVID-19 responses are gravely lacking in addressing the ageing population.

The survey, conducted by the Stakeholder Group on Ageing (SGA) Africa, found that factors such as inadequate social protection, health care infrastructures and multi-sector engagement mechanisms on ageing on all levels are contributing to these countries’ woeful lack of policies geared towards the ageing population.

On Thursday, SGA organised its second webinar on the Rights of Older Persons in Africa with a focus on the “Inclusion of Older Persons in COVID-19 Policy Response and Development Agendas”.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the needs of older persons in various African countries were not adequately addressed,” Dr. Emem Omokaro, co-chair SGA Africa, told IPS after the webinar.

“Unfortunately, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has further compounded the existing health challenges due to the shift in government attention from those existing challenges to containment of the COVID-19 pandemic, which further increase neglect of older persons.”

Full excerpt of the interview below:

Inter Press Service (IPS): What did this webinar aim to address?

Dr. Emem Omokaro (EO): COVID -19 is a global health, social, economic and psychosocial pandemic. Its intense activity and the mortality toll among the geriatric population have been evidenced by disaggregated data. The SGA Africa survey on the impact of COVID-19 containment and mitigation initiatives exposed social injustices, deepening inequalities, inadequate — or in some countries — non-existing healthcare and social protection infrastructure.

In Africa, the impact is materially more intense, with a prolonged systemic tendency to leave older persons behind. For a COVID-19 recovery, we cannot afford to continue as usual. The fundamental question for SGA Africa then became, what can we do differently? How do we influence the approach of ministries, departments and agencies of governments, organisational and agencies in their intervention efforts? How can we bring compassion, passion, research and data, to influence political decisions? How can we influence African member states to deliberately set up multi-sector stakeholder platforms for collective and intersecting decisions, and to set up common structures of engagement for older persons centred policy actions?

IPS: How has the ageing population in the 18 African countries (as mentioned in your brief) been affected by COVID-19?

EO: When the question was asked, responses from the various participating countries showed clearly there were certain older person-specific issues that the strategies did not fully cover. Some of the issues include: access to medical care, abuse and violence, lack of social protection for older persons, lack of research/information about older persons, voices of older persons not [being] heard, access to nutritional intervention services, age discrimination, neglect in the distribution of palliatives, and inadequate sensitisation for older persons.

The health and economic impacts of the virus are borne disproportionately by poor people. For example, homeless people who lack safe shelters, and people without access to running water, among others.

Specifically, the impacts of COVID-19 on older persons include the following:

• increased mortality rate among older persons;
• older Persons with pre-existing health challenges who lack access to health care;
• neglect and maltreatment of older persons in care homes and other institutions;
• disruption of older persons’ social networks and support systems;
• increased incidences of abuses of older persons;
• isolation, neglect and loneliness due to social distancing;
• social protection has been grossly affected; and
• erosion of the means of livelihood of older persons due to the lockdown.

IPS: How does it affect the ageing population when they’re not included in policy responses to COVID-19?

EO: Older men and women can be perfectly healthy even though their metabolic rates may slow down and their strength declines. Some mental activities also slow or change completely. These changes and declines occur at different levels and at different rates. In favourable environments, the changes will hardly be apparent, and the benefits of old age may often mean that life improves and older persons are happier, and unsure of its veracity and essence.

COVID-19 is more than a health crisis, but a human, economic and social crisis; attacking the core of the human society–as it heightens inequality, exclusion, discrimination, xenophobia, vulnerabilities and global unemployment in the medium and long terms. It affects all segments of the population and it is particularly detrimental to those in the most vulnerable situations, including people living in poverty situations (especially women), older persons, and persons with disabilities, youth migrants, and refugees among others.

IPS: In what ways have the governments responded to specific needs of the ageing population in these countries under the current pandemic?

EO: There were varied responses. Some African countries, including Togo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Madagascar indicated that their countries had not made much progress in terms of older person-specific programmes.

Expectedly, the majority of African countries made tremendous progress in the implementation of containment and mitigation services to older persons. A few African countries that made outstanding progress in older person-specific containment and mitigation services are Rwanda, Kenya and South Africa.

The responses in these countries indicated that they’d accomplished measures such as sensitisation of social distancing, provision of food to older persons, food distributions to older persons, advocacy for older persons’ voices to be heard, building of older persons care homes, and access to medical insurance.

IPS: From the concept note, it’s clear that there’s a large focus on regional partnership to address this issue. Why is a partnership so crucial to addressing the issue? In what ways can it enhance the efforts to improve the situation? 

EO: Establishment of partnership with national, regional and international agencies and bodies is very crucial in the fight against ageism and as well in the achievement of [Sustainable Development Goals] SDGs Agenda 2030 and [African Union] AU Agenda 2063. Older persons are diverse and ageing is multi-sectoral.

Partnerships are crucial for resource mobilisation, exchange of information and knowledge, new technology, and capacity building. It is necessary to have inter-agencies and multi sectoral -older persons centred interventions. Specifically, partnership will promote effective coordination efforts towards multi-sector and comprehensive response to ageing and older persons during and post COVID-19. SGA Africa is advocating for a policy directive on an intervention methodology which commands all United Nations Agencies with countries in Africa to build the multi-agency mechanisms on ageing.

Over the next decade, China will be home to the world's largest elderly population, while India -- because of its demographic dividend – will require jobs for the world's largest workforce. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Amna Khaishgi
SEOUL/NEW DELHI, Oct 28 2017 (IPS)

Experts on population ageing converged in Seoul this week to discuss how to make reaching one’s “golden years” a happy and sustainable process across the world.

They gathered at the Global Symposium on Ageing 2017. The two-day symposium on Oct. 23-24 was aimed at “Promoting Resilience and Sustainability in an Ageing World”.“Having never encountered ageing on a global scale before, humanity is still grappling with this issue through a trial and error approach." --Yasuo Fukuda, Chair of APDA

Organized by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Statistics Korea (KOSTAT), it brought together thought leaders in the field of ageing, including policy makers, academics, civil society, the private sector, and representatives of international agencies, to review past developments, current challenges, and future actions.

“Population ageing is no longer a phenomenon of developed countries. The pace of population ageing is progressing most quickly in developing countries. By 2050, around 80 percent of people aged 60 or older will live in what are now low- or middle-income countries,” said Dr. Natalia Kanem, executive director of UNFPA.

“Ageing is the outcome of great achievements in health and nutrition, in social and economic development, and it reflects a better quality of life around the globe. It is a triumph of development. We must now turn our focus from merely helping people reach old age to helping them reach a happy old age,” she added.

Countries like Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Manoglia, Nepal, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam participated in the symposium and shared their experiences. UNFPA also announced the establishment of its permanent liaison office in Seoul to work on population ageing.

During the two-day symposium, participants reviewed the progress of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Aging (MIPAA), which was adopted at the Second World Assembly on Ageing by government representatives from all over the globe in 2002.

MIPAA continues to serve as one of the main guiding frameworks for UNFPA’s work of stock-taking on global ageing. It recognizes ageing as a global trend and relates this to social and economic development and human rights. MIPAA promotes a “society of all ages” and assures the wellbeing of a large and growing number of older persons.

The symposium also debated how population aging might affect social and economic development, and discussed whether government policies regarding education, health, and woman’s empowerment are really supporting their ageing population.

One in nine persons across the world is aged 60 or older. This is projected to increase to one in five by 2050.

On the eve of the conference, the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) also issued a ‘Policy brief on Ageing in Asia’.

“We live in a world in which globally the population is ageing, and a demographic transition taking place,” said Yasuo Fukuda, a former Prime Minister of Japan and Chair of APDA, in his introduction.

“Having never encountered ageing on a global scale before, humanity is still grappling with this issue through a trial and error approach, and despite multitudinous research on the topic, a one-size-fits-all solution has yet to be found,” he said.

“This report too is limited in its scope, and is by no means a compendium of the vast amount of research that has been done on ageing and social security, and does not offer definitive solutions,” Fukuda added. “What it does aim to do is to clearly set out issues surrounding this topic and present critical views that can help Asian countries develop better policies for population ageing.”

While sharing the details and findings of the policy brief, Fukuda said that it is necessary to strengthen the gathering of statistics, in particular the census system, and to establish family registration systems in order to identify the paid subscribers and beneficiaries of social security, and to avoid a breakdown in the system resulting from the so-called tragedy of the commons. He also emphasized that there need to promote research and implement policies to stem very low fertility and so avoid too rapid a decline in population.

According to the Policy Brief, issued by APDA, the world’s ratio of population ageing will increase from 9.3 percent to 16.0 percent from 2020 to 2050. In Asia, the ratio will more than double, from 8.8 percent to 18.2 percent. In more developed regions and less developed regions, the ratios will rise from 19.4 percent to 26.5 percent and from 7.4 percent to 14.4 percent respectively.

“Asia’s population, however, is estimated to age rapidly thereafter so that by 2050, the ratio in six countries and areas will be 30 percent or over, which is considered the ratio at which point a country can be described as a super-ageing society, 20-30 percent in 11 countries and areas, 10-20 percent in 25 countries and areas, and less than 10 percent in nine countries and areas (and less than 7 percent in five of these nine),” the brief said.

“The projections show that around 90 percent of Asian countries will be either ageing or super-ageing societies by 2050. Ageing in Asia is particularly characterized by the rapid pace of ageing in East Asian countries,” the report said.

“Whereas it took more than 40 years for the ratio of population ageing to double from 7 percent to 14 percent in Western countries, it took less than 25 years in countries such as South Korea, Singapore, and Japan.”

According to the report, the projections of the ratio of population ageing in 51 countries and areas in Asia in 2020, the ratio is estimated to be 15 percent or over in five countries and areas (including Japan, South Korea, and Singapore), 10-15 percent in eight countries and areas (including Thailand, China, and Sri Lanka), 7-10 percent in seven countries (including North Korea, Vietnam, and Malaysia), 5-7 percent in 11 countries and areas (including India, Iran, and Indonesia), and less than 5 percent in 20 countries and areas (including Cambodia, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Iraq).

The data show that in 2020, 20 countries and areas will reach the 7 percent mark, which is considered the benchmark indicator of an ageing population, while 31 countries and areas will fall short of the 7 percent mark. Countries and areas with a young population structure will make up about 60 percent of all countries and areas in this region.

A caregiver assists her elderly employer on a residential street in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Fabiana Frayssinet
BUENOS AIRES, May 19 2015 (IPS)

As in the rest of the world, the care of children, the elderly and the disabled in Latin America has traditionally fallen to women, who add it to their numerous domestic and workplace tasks. A debate is now emerging in the region on the public policies that governments should adopt to give them a hand, while also helping their countries grow.

The challenges women face are reflected by the life of body therapist Alicia, from Argentina, who preferred not to give her last name. After raising three children and deciding to concentrate on her long-postponed dream of becoming a writer, she now finds herself caring for her nearly 99-year-old mother.

The elderly woman is in good health for her age, with almost no cognitive or motor difficulties. But time is implacable, and Alicia is starting to wonder how she will be able to afford a full-time nurse or caregiver.“In Latin America we’re facing what has been called the caregiving crisis. As life expectancy has improved, the population is ageing, which means there are more people in need of care.” -- Gimena de León

“I can see things changing in my mother’s condition. She can still get around pretty much on her own – she can take a bath, she moves around, but it’s getting harder and harder for her. And she’s becoming more and more forgetful,” said Alicia, who up to now has managed to juggle her work and job-related travelling thanks to the help of a cousin and a woman she pays as back-up support.

“But soon I’ll have to find another way to manage,” she added. “I won’t be able to leave her alone, like I do now, for a few hours. I have no idea how I’ll handle this. Time is running out and soon I’ll have to figure something out, if I want to be able to continue with my own life.”

According to Argentina’s national statistics and census institute, INEC, women dedicate twice as much time as men to caregiving: 6.4 hours a day compared to 3.4 hours. Among women who work outside the home, the average is 5.8 hours.

But given the new demographic makeup of the region, the situation could get worse, according to Gimena de León, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Inclusive Development analyst.

“In Latin America we’re facing what has been called the caregiving crisis,” she told IPS. “As life expectancy has improved, the population is ageing, which means there are more people in need of care.”
“At the same time the proportion of the population able to provide care has shrunk, basically because of the massive influx of women in the labour market. That’s where the bottleneck occurs, between the caregiving needs presented by the current population structure and this drop in family caregiving capacity,” she added.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reports that 53 percent of working-age women in the region are in the labour market, and 70 percent of women between the ages of 20 and 40.

It also estimates that in 2050 the elderly will make up nearly one-fourth of the population of Latin America, due to an ageing process that is a new demographic phenomenon in this region of 600 million people.

Changes that according to René Mauricio Valdés, the UNDP resident representative in Argentina, “leave a kind of empty space,” which is more visible in the political agenda because up to now it was taken for granted that families – and women in particular – were in charge of caregiving.

The UNDP and organisations like the ILO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are promoting a regional debate on the need for governments to design public policies aimed at achieving greater gender equality.

According to the UNDP, caregiving is the range of activities and relationships aimed at meeting the physical and emotional requirements of the segments of the population who are not self-sufficient – children, dependent older adults and people with disabilities.

In the region, the greatest progress has been made in Costa Rica, especially with respect to the care of children, and in Uruguay, where a “national caregiving system” has begun to be built for children between the ages of 0 and 3, people with disabilities and the elderly, with the additional aim of improving the working conditions of paid caregivers.

Other countries like Chile and Ecuador have also made progress, but with more piecemeal measures.

In Argentina the national programme of home-based care providers offers training to paid caregivers and provides home-based care services to poor families, through the public health system. But the waiting lists are long.

“The current policies don’t suffice to ease the burden of caregiving for families, and for women in particular, who are the ones doing the caregiving work to a much greater extent than men,” said De León.

“The distribution of time and resources is clearly unfair to women, and the state has to take a hand in this,” she said.

Solutions should emerge according to the specific characteristics of each country. Measures that are called for include longer maternity and paternity leave, more caregiving services for the elderly, more daycare centres for small children, flexibility to allow people to work from home, and more flexible work schedules.

But caregiving is still a relatively new issue in terms of public debate, and has been largely invisible for decision-makers, according to Fabián Repetto of the Argentine Centre for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth.

“The different things that would fit under the umbrella of a policy on caregiving were never given priority in the political sphere,” she told IPS.

Repetto believes the issue will begin to draw the interest of the political leadership “when it becomes more visible.”

The “economic argument” of those promoting this debate, the UNDP explains, is “the need to incorporate the female workforce in order to improve the productivity of countries and give households a better chance to pull out of poverty.”

In addition, it is necessary to improve “the human capital” of children, “whose educational levels will be strengthened with comprehensive care policies in stimulating settings.”

“What does that mean? That those children who receive early childhood development today, and who we give a boost with a caregiving policy, will be much more productive. And being much more productive as a society makes the country grow, and makes it possible to have better policies for older adults as well,” Repetto said.

Alicia prefers a “human” rather than economic argument.

“The idea is to respect the life of an elderly person, which sometimes for different reasons is hard to maintain. Respect for the dignity of the other, so they can live the best they can up to the last moment. For them to be cared for, and that doesn’t just mean changing their diapers, but that they are cared for as a human being.”

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

India is currently home to over 100 million elderly people. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Apr 2 2015 (IPS)

As more and more people in India enter the ‘senior citizen’ category, ugly cracks are beginning to appear in a social structure that claims to value the institution of family but in reality expresses disdain for the bonds of blood.

Recent research by HelpAge India, a leading charity dedicated to the care of seniors, reveals that every second elderly person in India – defined as someone above 60 years of age – suffers abuse within their own family, a malaise that has been found to infect all social strata and all regions of the country.

Every second elderly person in India – defined as someone above 60 years of age – suffers abuse within their own family – HelpAge India
The 12-city study, ‘State of the Elderly in India 2014’, found that one in five elderly persons encounters physical and emotional abuse almost daily, a third around once a week, and a fifth every month. A common reason for the abuse is elderly family members’ economic dependence on their progeny.

According to sociologists, neglect of senior citizens – once revered and idolized in Indian society – is largely attributable to the changing social landscape in Asia’s third largest economy, currently home to over 100 million elderly people.

“Rapidly altering lifestyles and values, demanding jobs, rural-to-urban migration, a shift from joint to nuclear family structures and redefined priorities are all leading to this undesirable situation,” Veena Purohit, visiting professor of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, tells IPS.

Older, Sicker and Poorer

The world’s second most populous nation hosting 1.25 billion people has experienced a dramatic demographic transition in the past 50 years, witnessing close to a tripling of the population aged 60 and over, according to government statistics.

This pattern is poised to continue, with experts projecting that the number of Indians aged 60 and older will surge from 7.5 percent of the country’s total population in 2010 to 11.1 percent in 2025.

By 2050, according to the United Nations Population Division (UNPD), India will host 48 million seniors over the age of 80 and 324 million citizens above 60, a demographic greater than the total U.S. population in 2012.

As per HelpAge’s estimates, the population of people aged 80 years and older is growing the fastest, at a rate of 700 percent.

The boom is largely being ascribed to improved life expectancy outcomes, which have shot up from 40 years in the 1960s to 68.3 years in 2015.

“The steady increase in elderly citizens’ life expectancy has produced fundamental changes in the age structure of India’s population, which in turn has led to the ageing population,” Aabha Choudhury, chairperson of Anurgraha, a non-profit for elderly citizens, tells IPS.

Choudhury adds that the unmet demand for special care services and facilities for the elderly is worsening the situation.

“The benefits outlined in the government’s policy on older persons – a blueprint for their welfare – is yet to reach target beneficiaries. There is a dearth of adequate geriatric care infrastructure and lack of awareness among the target group as well as the service providers,” she explains.

Ironically, despite longer life spans, and India’s rapid economic growth, the majority of older Indians remain poor. Less than 11 percent of them have a pension of any sort, according to national surveys, and savings – like earnings – are low.

This scenario augurs ill for the country’s grey population, with the coming decades threatening to bring unprecedented challenges of morbidity and mortality across the country, according to a 2012 report entitled ‘Health of the Elderly in India: Challenges of Access and Affordability’.

According to the UNPD, 13 percent of older Indians sampled have some type of disability that affects at least one activity of daily living.

More than one-quarter of this population is underweight and nearly one-third has undiagnosed hyper­tension. Nearly 60 percent live in dwellings lacking access to an improved sewer system.

With little old-age income support and few savings, labour force participation remains high among those aged 60 and older, particularly among rural Indians, household surveys suggest.

Not only do a large share of the elderly earn an income, they even support their adult children who live in homes and work on farms owned by their parents.

While the Indian government invests significantly on the country’s youth, expecting them to contribute to the economy, support for those who are feeble remains abysmal, rue senior citizens.

For instance, the government’s Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme offers a paltry five dollars per month to those above 60 living below the poverty line, which many suggest is an “insult”.

Government failing its most vulnerable citizens

Population-wide mechanisms of social security in India, point out financial experts, are also missing.

“Indians have to work as long as possible in order to support themselves,” explains a senior official at the government-run Life Insurance Corporation. “Employer insurance and pension schemes are available only to as low as nine percent of rural males and 41.9 percent of urban males who are in the formal sector; among females, the figures are lower still.”

Despite India’s rapid economic growth, the majority of older Indians remain poor. Less than 11 percent have a pension of any sort, and many continue to work in old age. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

Insurance in India is limited not only by its low coverage of conditions but also by low coverage of populations. National Family Health Surveys indicate that only 10 percent of households in India had at least one member of the family covered by any form of health insurance.

“Good quality healthcare should be urgently made available and accessible to the elderly. Rehabilitation, community or home-based disability support and end-of-life care should also be provided to address failing health issues among the elderly,” says Vinod Kumar, a member of the Core Group for Protection and Welfare of Elderly, constituted by the National Human Rights Commission in 2009.

There’s also a need, suggests Kumar, to expedite the setting up of a National Commission for Senior Citizens.

The draft bill for the Commission, which lists the proposed commission’s responsibilities, is still pending with Parliament.

“The Commission’s mandate involves looking into matters of deprivation of senior citizens’ rights, their human rights violations and making recommendations to relevant authorities to take action. The proposed commission will also inspect old-age homes, prisons and remand homes to see if their rights are being violated,” elaborates Kumar.

Sugan Bhatia, senior vice president of the All-India Senior Citizens’ Confederation, is disappointed that unlike the West, the Indian government offers no medical support to the elderly.

“Even if we buy medical insurance on our own, it only covers emergency hospitalisation costs. There’s no coverage for costs for medicine or doctors’ fees, which have almost tripled in the last three years,” he tells IPS.

As a signatory to the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and other U.N. declarations, the Indian government has enacted a piece of legislation, the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, which makes it a legal obligation for children and heirs to provide maintenance to senior citizens and parents.

However, most parents acknowledge that the issue is far more nuanced than being a financial or legal matter.

Many elderly citizens confess staying with their abusive children more for emotional reasons. “As an army widow, I get a reasonably good pension after my husband’s death, so I can stay separately,” confesses 68-year-old Savita Devi.

“However, my love for my two grandkids, who absolutely adore me, is preventing me from shifting out. It’s a catch-22,” she tells IPS.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida