Highlights of an expert consultation on developing a policy framework for a society for all ages
From the Annex of A54/268 -
Report of the Secretary General
International Year of Older Persons 1999:
activities and legacies.
This annex outlines a possible new "architecture of ageing", combining strategic thinking with pragmatic measures. It aims to be preventative, holistic, interactive, sustainable and even wealth-creating. It is suggestive, not prescriptive. And it represents the latest stage in a continuing process intended to facilitate movement towards "A society for all ages", the theme of the International Year of Older Persons, 1999. It was elaborated throughout the Year, most notably at a United Nations interregional expert consultation in Seoul, Republic of Korea, from 11 to 16 June 1999, hosted by the Government of the Republic and supported by Swiss Re Life and Health.
Policy responses to ageing until now have tended to focus on provision of care and income security for older persons, which remain important but inadequate to the scale and rate of ageing now occurring and projected to intensify in coming decades. The World Bank report "Averting the old age crisis" and other commentaries have attested to the unsustainability of many conventional policies in developed, developing and transitional economies.
Governments have recently begun to expand their approaches to individual ageing, complementing care and security measures for older persons with ones promoting active ageing. For example, in 1997 at its Denver summit, the Group of 8 [industrial countries] recognized the need to abandon stereotypes of older persons as dependent. They discussed how to promote active ageing including, with due regard to older persons' choices and circumstances, the removal of disincentives to labour force participation and lowering of barriers to flexible and part-time work.
Active or resourceful ageing requires an enabling environment, principally: opportunities over the entire lifecourse for building up capabilities, or "capital", and adjustment of family, community and country environments in keeping with the new demographic trends, such as the inversion of the family pyramid already evident in China and other countries and the astonishing, continuing rise in the proportion of older persons throughout the world, from one in 10 today to one in five by 2050, one in four by 2100 and one in three by 2150. (Several developed economies will reach the latter proportion within the next 30 years.) 5. Thus, adjustments must be made by individuals, families, communities and countries - at the micro, meso and macro levels of societies. These adjustments are rendered more complex, and potentially more fruitful, by the convergence of the demographic transition with a development transition, the latter holding promise of new economic as well as socio-cultural enrichment.
The build-up of human, social, economic and environmental capital is important in all countries. The age-advanced and economically developed countries need a contributing younger old population as their oldest old rise in numbers and the working-age population declines. The developing economies - where 60 per cent of the world's elderly now live, rising to 70 per cent in 20 years - are challenged to develop human and economic capital while strengthening the social capital of family and community security systems. Economies in transition, which lack both the economic capital of developed and the social capital of developing countries, need to devise creative uses of their human capital to address the immediate emergency needs of an age-advanced population.
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Strategic Approach
The four fundamental elements of the framework for a society for all ages are: efforts by older persons themselves; capabilities, or "capital", accumulated over the lifecourse; mutually enriching multigenerational relationships in families and communities; and adjustment of national infrastructures in line with demographic and other changes. These were first outlined in the conceptual framework for the Year.a
8. The four elements can be rendered dynamic by blending them with the idea of generating capital in four areas - human, socio-cultural, economic and environmental - in order to produce a proactive and wealth-creating approach to ageing, going beyond a mere reactive, or maintenance, stance. The following matrix illustrates the idea of capital-generation. It lists some primary investors for each type of capital, their assets, some operating principles, and some possible outcomes.
CAPITALS |
HUMAN
|
SOCIAL/CULTURAL
|
ECONOMIC
|
ENVIRONMENTAL
|
Primary 'investors' |
Individual
Families
Schools etc |
Families
Local communities
Communities of
Interest
Media, etc |
Individuals
Families
Communities
Private sector
Governments |
Local Government
Planners
Developers
(urban and rural)
Etc. |
Principles |
Independence
Resilience |
Interdependence
Reciprocity |
Growth
Sustenance |
Enablement
Connectivity |
Assets |
Health
Knowledge, Skills
Understanding
Capabilities, Will |
Networks
Trust
Communication
Mutual supports |
Formal/informal
Work skills, assets, security systems etc) |
Barrier free
All/age compatible |
Capital outcomes |
Long lived individuals who are:
Skilled
Resilient
Reflective
Adapted, and
Flourishing throughout life |
Societies that are:
Caring, supportive
Tolerant, Pluralist
Integrated
Learning and capable of blending innovation and tradition in appropriate balance |
An economy that is:
Secure
Open
Equitable
Responsive
Competitive
Adapted to an ageing society |
An environment that is:
'Livable'
Flexible
Accessible
Adaptable
Age integrated |
9. The following diagram illustrates the flow between the four elements and the four kinds of capital.
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Measures
10. The strategic approach requires pragmatic measures which creatively take advantage of national resources, aspirations and the capabilities of actors, including the governmental, non-governmental and for-profit sectors. Measures for consideration include:
(a) Lifelong education - leading to a skilled population, enlightened elders and a learning society;
(b) Promotion of healthy lifestyles - resulting in delay or defeat of disease;
(c) Multigenerational community development initiatives, including microenterprises and microcredit - generating all four types of capital in order to strengthen communities; (d) Flexible labour policies, including phased retirement, better integration of women into the workforce and men into the lives of families - allowing for more gender equity, intergenerational care and opportunities for resourceful ageing;
(e) A barrier-free and age-integrated built environment supporting all-age access and multigenerational encounters - which would foster better intergenerational dialogue;
(f) Investment in civil society, including intergenerational organizations and organizations of older persons - for the enrichment of civil society;
(g) Creative approaches to ensuring material well-being and the provision of appropriate social services and welfare coverage - for sustainable national welfare policies; (h) Income security measures that generate national capital through savings and pension schemes and that foster human solidarity, as in the case of savings cooperatives and informal community solidarity systems - towards poverty elimination.
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11. Some of the questions on devising a policy for a society for all ages might be:
(a) Is the policy sustainable in the light of anticipated demographic and societal change?
(b) Is the policy able to contribute to the development of any or all of the four types of capital and the essential balance between them?
(c) Does the policy enable accumulation of capital across the lifecourse?
(d) Does the policy enhance the continuing evolution of gender equity in family caring and nurturing?
(e) Does the policy enhance individual choice and autonomy and, simultaneously, community solidarity?
(f) Does the policy promote the interdependence of generations?
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12. In light of rapid population ageing and the projected demographic shifts extending into the coming century, action is necessary in the short, medium and long term. Such action will vary according to a country's rate and extent of ageing and its socio-economic development.
13. Governments are faced with the responsibility, in partnership with others, of ensuring the well-being and health of all citizens. This responsibility transcends any considerations of gender, social class, or age group, ethnicity or any other individual or group characteristic.
14. Many of the conventional approaches to ageing in different societies have tended to remain intact in spite of extraordinary changes in demography, individual life expectancy, family structure, technology, economy and culture.
15. Fresh, imaginative and more positive responses to the prospects of further increases in life expectancy and the ageing of populations need to be instituted. To be effective, such approaches need to be based on fundamental shifts in orientation. It is necessary to move from an emphasis on reacting to the negative characteristics of older persons to seeing also their contributions and from responding to ageing as a problem to seeing it as a potential for wealth creation and a catalyst of flourishing lives.
16. Each society, according to its own priorities and resources, must follow its own course towards the realization of a society for all ages and determine the first crucial steps to be taken in that direction at this time. There is no question but that now is the time to begin the process in all societies.
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