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The world celebrated the International Day of Older Persons on 1S t October. Sri Lanka also celebrates its Children’s Day on the same day. What a beautiful coincidence, although perhaps it is purely by chance (and not by design). In fact, this celebration of youth and old age alike is a symbolic representation of the life cycle approach and intergenerational engagement that is crucial to addressing some of the challenges of aging or longevity of the population.
During the electronic launch “The Catalog of Social Policies on Population Aging: A Quick Scope Review” produced by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia Pacific, its Director, Bjorn Andersson, reiterated that the solutions to The challenges faced by aging populations in the region must be based on a life-cycle and intergenerational approach, with gender equality and social inclusion at its core, and optimal sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights of women. women and girls as key components.
Andersson said that there is no country in the Asia Pacific region that has a single policy that addresses all aspects of the dynamic population transition. Many policies on population aging do not include intergenerational commitment, while others lack components of social inclusion that allow the full and meaningful participation of older people in society.
The catalog of social policies on population aging seeks to systematically identify and collate available social policies on population aging on a global scale. Andersson hoped that the catalog, which seeks to systematically identify and compile available social policies on population aging, would allow governments to help design strategies and strengthen policies that reflect the needs of older people and promote healthy aging.
This would require:
- strengthening health systems to promote healthy lifestyles throughout life to reduce the risks of non-communicable diseases and ensure equitable access to sexual and reproductive health and rights in SRHR;
- strengthen social policies, including social protection, so that all people can obtain an education and decent work and have access to social safety nets such as childcare and pension plans; Y
- eliminate all forms of discrimination against older people by promoting social inclusion, including intergenerational solidarity and older-friendly environments to transform society positively towards aging
Decaying gender roles are the biggest nightmare for older women.
Illiteracy and society’s clinging to specific gender roles in decline is the biggest nightmare of older women, especially in South and Southeast Asian countries. Despite the reality that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the “fiction that unpaid care work is not work” (said Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General), women are expected, even if have an education, engage in unpaid work as family caregivers. . In patriarchal societies, such as India, there is hardly any help from male family members, even in so-called modern households. So their participation in the labor force takes a back seat and they are economically dependent on men. Therefore, they do not have money of their own and therefore do not have a personal safety net or social protection in their old age. Furthermore, since biologically women tend to live longer than men, this longevity simply favors their economic and health problems.
Professor Tengku Aizan Hamid from the Malaysian Research Institute on Aging (MyAgeing) and Director of the Institute of Gerontology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, said that as childcare is very expensive in Malaysia, even educated women find it cheaper to stay out of the workforce who put their children in daycare. According to him, it is necessary to consider social protection aspects in terms of the life cycle perspective of the provision of services to women, and stereotyped gender roles should not nullify or determine their participation in the labor force.
Krishna Murari Gautam, President of Aging Nepal (Aging Nepal received the coveted UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize last month), during an online session of the 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (APCRSHR10), made a fervent plea for the life cycle approach to address and incorporate health, education and training.
All these three components (health, education and training) are an integral part of all stages of human life. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle throughout the life cycle, beginning in childhood, is essential for healthy aging and for keeping many diseases at bay. Education is a good situation for everyone, not only in terms of making a job more worthwhile, but also in expanding the ability to think rationally and act without prejudice. Training and updating with the latest technology will not only reduce the generation gap, but will also help in social inclusion and improve the coping mechanisms of older people. And yes, let’s also think about celebrating Children’s Day and the Day of the Elderly together in a participatory way.
October 1, 2020 was also the beginning of the “Decade of Healthy Aging”, a UN initiative supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) to “bring together governments, civil society, international agencies, professionals, academia , the media and the private sector for ten years of concerted, catalytic and collaborative action to improve the lives of older people, their families and the communities in which they live. ”
