Dr Alexandre Kalache, Director of Ageing and the Life Course at the WHO addressed an audience at Kings College this week, on the topic of ‘The Challenge of Population Ageing is Global- but Greater in the South’. The daily work of the ILC-UK is mainly focused on the UK, so this was a refreshing chance to take a global perspective on the phenomenon of ageing.
It is commonly known that in countries such as Japan, Germany and Italy, by 2025 about a third or more of the populations in these countries will be over 60. What is less well known is the rapid growth and importance of population aging in less developed countries. Currently more that 70% of older people live in the global ‘south’ and this is projected to increase to more than 80% by 2025. Developing countries face significant challenges because of their growing older population. Dr Kalache pointed out that compared to the developed world, the socioeconomic development in developing countries has often not kept pace with growth in ageing. For example, while it took 115 years for the proportion of older people in France to double from 7% to 14% it has taken only a generation or a little more in southern countries such as Brazil. In most developed countries, population aging was a gradual process following steady socio-economic growth over several decades while in developing countries this has been significantly compressed. As Dr Kalache put it: “developing countries are becoming old before they become rich while developed countries became rich before they became old.” Thus, developing countries will face significantly more socioeconomic challenges associated with ageing populations than countries in the ‘North’.
Another difference is that ageing in developing countries ‘feminized’. While in the North women tend to live longer than men, in countries such as Sierra Leone and India, men and women have about the same life expectancy; this being indicative of the deprivation of opportunities for girls, such as education.
Dr Kalache argued that while some people viewed aging as a problem, it was not; it was a challenge and one that we could meet. He stressed that a healthy older person is valuable resource: a resource to the family, to the community and to society in general. We should therefore aim to encourage and support healthy and positive ageing.
Primrose Musingarimi
Family as a asset in Developing countries.
Taking into account Dr Kalache s argument on how rapid the population is aging in developing countries, one important issue is how the state can handle this issue. As said, population is aging more rapidly than the economic growth in developing countries, one needs to formulate suitable policy documents. One asset that developing countries still possess is the culture of joint family. Most developing countries have more than 80% of their older adults living with thier children. But, the data also shows a gradual decline and nuclearization of family. If governments do not act immidetialy as to how these developing countries can transform this potential into asset,sooner or later, aging will emerge as a unslovable problem. I see the following issues to be included in policy after sufficient research and investigations:
a. How can developing countries benefit from the existing cultural system of joint family?
b. Is it possible to maintain the joint family system in an era of rapid ecomomic globalization ?
c. How can both older and younger generations benefit?