The world is aging so fast that most countries are not prepared to support their swelling numbers of elderly people, according to a global study going out Tuesday by the United Nations and an elder rights group. The report ranks the social and economic well-being of elders in 91 countries, with Sweden coming out on top and Afghanistan at the bottom. It reflects what advocates for the old have been warning, with increasing urgency, for years: Nations are simply not working quickly enough to cope with a population graying faster than ever before. By the year 2050, for the first time in history, seniors over the age of 60 will outnumber children under the age of 15. Truong Tien Thao, who runs a small tea shop on the sidewalk near his home in Hanoi, Vietnam, is 65 and acutely aware that he, like millions of others, is plunging into old age without a safety net. He wishes he could retire, but he and his 61-year-old wife depend on the $50 a month they earn from the tea shop. And so every day, Thao rises early to open the stall at 6 a.m. and works until 2 p.m., when his wife takes over until closing. "People at my age should have a rest, but I still have to work to make our ends meet," he says, while waiting for customers at the shop, which sells green tea, cigarettes and chewing gum. "My wife and I have no pension, no health insurance. I'm scared of thinking of being sick — I don't know how I can pay for the medical care." Thao's story reflects a key point in the report, which was released early to The Associated Press: Aging is an issue across the world. Perhaps surprisingly, the report shows that the fastest aging countries are developing ones, such as Jordan, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Vietnam, where the number of older people will more than triple by 2050. All ranked in the bottom half of the index. The Global AgeWatch Index (www.globalagewatch.org) was created by elder advocacy group HelpAge International and the U.N. Population Fund in part to address a lack of international data on the extent and impact of global aging. The index, released on the U.N.'s International Day of Older Persons, compiles data from the U.N., World Health Organization, World Bank and other global agencies, and analyzes income, health, education, employment and age-friendly environment in each country. The index was welcomed by elder rights advocates, who have long complained that a lack of data has thwarted their attempts to raise the issue on government agendas. "Unless you measure something, it doesn't really exist in the minds of decision-makers," said John Beard, Director of Ageing and Life Course for the World Health Organization. "One of the challenges for population aging is that we don't even collect the data, let alone start to analyze it. ... For example, we've been talking about how people are living longer, but I can't tell you people are living longer and sicker, or longer in good health." The report fits into an increasingly complex picture of aging and what it means to the world. On the one hand, the fact that people are living longer is a testament to advances in health care and nutrition, and advocates emphasize that the elderly should be seen not as a burden but as a resource. On the other, many countries still lack a basic social protection floor that provides income, health care and housing for their senior citizens. Afghanistan, for example, offers no pension to those not in the government. Life expectancy is 59 years for men and 61 for women, compared to a global average of 68 for men and 72 for women, according to U.N. data. That leaves Abdul Wasay struggling to survive. At 75, the former cook and blacksmith spends most of his day trying to sell toothbrushes and toothpaste on a busy street corner in Kabul's main market. The job nets him just $6 a day — barely enough to support his wife. He can only afford to buy meat twice a month; the family relies mainly on potatoes and curried vegetables. "It's difficult because my knees are weak and I can't really stand for a long time," he says. "But what can I do? It's even harder in winter, but I can't afford treatment." Although government hospitals are free, Wasay complains that they provide little treatment and hardly any medicine. He wants to stop working in three years, but is not sure his children can support him. He says many older people cannot find work because they are not strong enough to do day labor, and some resort to begging. "You have to keep working no matter how old you are — no one is rich enough to stop," he says. "Life is very difficult." Many governments have resisted tackling the issue partly because it is viewed as hugely complicated, negative and costly — which is not necessarily true, says Silvia Stefanoni, chief executive of HelpAge International. Japan and Germany, she says, have among the highest proportions of elders in the world, but also boast steady economies. View gallery." "There's no evidence that an aging population is a population that is economically damaged," she says. Prosperity in itself does not guarantee protection for the old. The world's rising economic powers — the so-called BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — rank lower in the index than some poorer countries such as Uruguay and Panama. However, the report found, wealthy nations are in general better prepared for aging than poorer ones. Sweden, where the pension system is now 100 years old, makes the top of the list because of its social support, education and health coverage, followed by Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada. The United States comes in eighth. Sweden's health system earns praise from Marianne Blomberg, an 80-year-old Stockholm resident. "The health care system, for me, has worked extraordinarily well," she says. "I suffer from atrial fibrillation and from the minute I call emergency until I am discharged, it is absolutely amazing. I can't complain about anything — even the food is good." Still, even in an elder-friendly country like Sweden, aging is not without its challenges. The Swedish government has suggested people continue working beyond 65, a prospect Blomberg cautiously welcomes but warns should not be a requirement. Blomberg also criticized the nation's finance minister, Anders Borg, for cutting taxes sharply for working Swedes but only marginally for retirees. "I go to lectures and museums and the theater and those kinds of things, but I probably have to stop that soon because it gets terribly expensive," she says. "If you want to be active like me, it is hard. But to sit home and stare at the walls doesn't cost anything." ___ [HR][/HR] Associated Press writers Malin Rising in Stockholm, Tran Van Minh in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report. KRISTEN GELINEAU
The U.S. recently raised the retirement age from 65 to 66. That's when you can start drawing a Social Security pension. It's likely that they will keep raising it every few years until it reaches 70. Our ancestors would not believe the things that we call "work." 150 years ago about 95% of the world population were farmers, working 100-hour weeks. 300 years ago 99% of them were subsistence farmers without any industrial technology, growing only enough surplus food to bring in a tiny bit of income. In the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, not only was almost everybody a farmer, but many of them were slaves. Today in the USA, only about 5% of us work in the food production and distribution industry, and that includes the truck drivers and the clerks in the supermarkets. Most of us are able to work while sitting down! The 40-hour week has been standard for almost a century, although lots of people (perhaps even a majority of the population) now work 50 hours, primarily due to the demise of the labor unions. I'm 70 and I'm still working. If I were retired, I'd be sitting at home in front of my computer all day. I do the same thing at the office, and they pay me. That's a no-brainer! Automation and advanced industrial technology are steadily reducing the need for manual labor. For example one janitor can do the work of three with the modern cleaning machinery at his disposal. I bet somebody reading this has a Roomba, which cleans their floors without human intervention. Once the Information Revolution is over and we've figured out how to integrate information technology into daily life (correctly, i.e., without two or three national governments spying on everything we do), the work week will surely drop back to 40 hours, and then keep decreasing. At some point the distinction between "work" and private life will become blurred, with more people being entrepreneurs as industry becomes even more fully automated.
Right now, the model in the economically developed countries seems to be for people to work a full 40-hour week until they reach retirement, then for them to stop working entirely and to live lives of leisure. Except that many seniors don't have enough retirement savings to fund it, and as the mean age increases there aren't enough young workers to fund bloated retirement systems. My expectation is that in the future, older people will be encouraged to keep working. Many seniors would prefer to continue working on a reduced schedule, since doing so would keep them plugged in socially and still feeling capable and productive. Employers should like it, because part-time workers will lower their labor costs and give them the staffing flexibility they need. They could bring in the older workers for priority projects and let them enjoy their retirement leisure when things are slow. The seniors would probably have to accept lower hourly pay than they had been making, and the employers would have to give the older workers less physically demanding work. Obviously the older workers are a huge depository of skill and experience. Employers could use them to mentor younger workers. Experienced workers, flexible scheduling and lower labor costs. It seems like that's the direction that things are likely to go. The day might come when workers start to gradually ease out of the work force from their middle 60's on, and might not become totally retired until 10 or even 20 years later.
