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Grey hairs over aging
Asia
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - An enduring image that has
helped to define Asian societies - of aging
parents being cared for by their grown children -
is coming under scrutiny in the wake of the
region's ballooning silver-haired population.
Asian governments will have to usher in
new policies to care for the region's elderly,
United Nations experts say, since the region is on
the brink of becoming home to the largest
concentration of old people.
"The
intensity of aging will increase at a faster rate
in the next 50 years," Kim Hak-Su, executive
secretary of the Economic and Social Commission
for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), a UN regional
body, told reporters on Monday.
Currently,
10% of the region's population - or 326 million
people - are above the age of 60, according to the
Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific
2005, an annual report released by ESCAP that
surveys the region's economic and social
conditions. That, ESCAP says, is a "three-fold
increase in 50 years, from 96 million [people] in
1950".
ESCAP's forecast is even more
sobering, since the Asia-Pacific region is
expected to witness "an even faster rate of
increase" over the next half a century. By 2050,
according to the UN body, the number of old people
on the continent is estimated to reach more than
1.2 billion, nearly 23% of the region's
population. That number would account for nearly
63% of the world's entire aging generation.
The report also points out that between
the sexes women are outliving their male
counterparts in significant numbers. "The share of
women in the 60 and over age group is expected to
increase from 5% of the total population in 2000
to 12.4% by 2050." In contrast, the share of males
in the same group is expected to rise from 4.3% to
10% during a similar period, according to the
report.
Japan, the region's most powerful
economy, best conveys the challenge that lies
ahead. "Nearly 42% of Japan's population will be
over 60 years by 2050," said Kim.
China,
home to 1.3 billion of the world's 6.3 billion
people, is also among the countries worrying
ESCAP, since it is expected to have 437 million
people, or nearly 30% of its population, above 60
years of age by 2050.
Two of the region's
other giants - India, with 1.08 billion people,
and Indonesia, with 218 million people - are also
aging rapidly. By 2050, one in every five people
in both countries respectively will be above the
age of 60.
A significant reason for this
demographic shift is advances in the region's
health-care services. That includes successful
campaigns to combat killer diseases such as
malaria and cholera. The positive outcomes from
population-control initiatives have also shaped
this demographic pattern.
"Life expectancy
increased by 26 years, or 63%, to 67.4 years in
Asia and by 13.5 years, or 22%, to 74.4 years in
the Pacific during the last half century," the
ESCAP report states.
Hence there's little
wonder why questions are being raised over the
tradition that has long prevailed in the region of
aging parents being cared for by their grown
children. Can this arrangement last in these
shifting times?
For the moment, it appears
that the old order of the family providing the
safety net still prevails. "The good news is that
the family structure is not breaking down. A
majority of the old people in Asia are cared for
by their children," Thelma Kay, director of
ESCAP's emerging social issues division, told
Inter Press Service.
At the same time,
there is an emerging consensus among the aging
generation and the region's governments that an
answer to the rapid rise in an older population
does not lie in arrangements currently prevailing
in the West, namely the setting up of homes for
the elderly.
"The people here are not
happy with the kind of institutions for the old
that you have in the West, because [they] don't
fit with our culture and lifestyle," Usa
Khiewrord, Southeast Asia program manager for
HelpAge International, a non-governmental group,
told IPS.
Consequently, the region's
governments will have to look for an "Asian
model", said Kim. Some of the likely candidates
that are the subject of discussion include the way
the elderly are being cared for in Malaysia,
Singapore, South Korea and India.
"India
has begun a social-assistance scheme for the
elderly that is still very basic but hopeful,
while Malaysia is encouraging the elderly to be
cared by family members at home," said Kay.
Other elements, too, will have to be
factored in to care for the greying heads of Asia.
They include changes in pension and health
systems, a rethinking of labor policies and a
confronting of the discrimination linked to aging.
The "pay-as-you-go" public pension system
that is common across the region is "unsustainable
with the increasing number of retirees and
declining share of contributors," said Kim.
"Public debt could be under pressure."
(Inter Press Service) |
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