UK and US 'must learn from poor countries' to solve ageing crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/13/uk-and-us-must-learn-from-poor-countries-to-solve-ageing-crisis


UK and US 'must learn from poor countries' to solve ageing crisis

Amelia Hill

@byameliahill

Monday 13 November 2017 09.13 GMT Last modified on Monday 13 November 2017 09.29 GMT

The ageing crisis facing Britain, the US and other wealthier nations could be partly addressed by adopting initiatives being developed in poorer countries, experts say. Low- and middle-income countries have been forced to be “innovative and ingenious” in finding low-cost and effective solutions for their growing elderly populations.

Some of the initiatives include:
Devoting an entire city in Chile to experimenting with elderly care.
Increasing involvement of older people in democracy through old people’s councils in Brazil.
Training armies of volunteers in elderly care, as in several south-east Asian nations.
Establishing job creation schemes for older people, as Finland and South Korea have both done.

“The west could learn a lot from low- and middle-income countries about economically efficient, innovative and effective solutions to the ageing issue,” said Alexandre Kalache, a UN adviser and former director of the World Health Organisation’s global ageing programme. “But it isn’t, because there’s a lot of negative bias, patronising attitudes and prejudice from developed countries towards developing ones: a feeling that if an idea comes from a developing country, it’s not worth looking at,” said Kalache, now co-president of the International Longevity Centre-Brazil (ILC BR).
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Britain’s efforts to meet the demands of its own ageing population have been criticised: the World Bank has said its method of funding long-term care “results in inefficient use of personal and state resources” and discourages individuals from saving. It is also guilty of harbouring an attitude towards developing countries of a “paternalistic colony”, said John Beard, director of the World Health Organisation’s Department of Ageing and Life Course.
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Large swaths of the world are facing a demographic challenge. There are more people over the age of 60 than below the age of five. Worldwide, 80-plus is the fastest-growing population subgroup, up from 14 million in 1950 to a projected 379 million by 2050. The rate at which longevity has increased has been particularly dramatic in low- and middle-income countries. “We need new ideas at local and national level to avoid collision with this incredibly fast-occurring issue,” said Kalache. “Planning must be highly innovative as families and the larger economy cannot afford the departure from the formal workplace of large numbers of women to care for relatives. And care does tend to be left to women.”
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