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2.7 Growing old in poverty: Working Out of Poverty

Written by: International Labour Organization

Article Overview: Multi-generational relationships have sustained family and community life for centuries. Increasingly, however, older people have to rely on themselves to meet all their needs.

2.7 Growing old in poverty: Working Out of Poverty

Multi-generational relationships have sustained family and community
life for centuries. Increasingly, however, older people have to rely on themselves
to meet all their needs. In most developing countries, retirement is a
luxury few older people can afford. About 40 per cent of people aged over
64 in Africa and about 25 per cent in Asia are still in the labour force, mostly
in the agricultural sector. In many countries, a high proportion of older
women work in the informal economy, partly because they can more easily
combine work with family responsibilities, and partly for reasons related to
discrimination encountered in the formal economy.

Among older people, it is women who are most likely to end up in abject
poverty. Nearly everywhere in the world, women live longer than men
and account for the majority of single-person households. In many countries,
public expenditures on social security and health care have been cut, often
in the mistaken belief that families and communities will take care of their
aged.

The sad fact is that there has been a reversal in inter-generational care.
Older women who have already spent their lifetime looking after other
people increasingly cannot expect to be cared for in their twilight years. In
many least developed countries, the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has
left older women with responsibility for caring for their infected children
and, later on, their grandchildren. HIV/AIDS now leads to wider gender inequalities,
both at the beginning and at the end of a woman’s life cycle, and
also accounts for the increasing feminization of poverty.

Particularly in Africa, older women are finding that their care-giving
role is increasingly required by a range of relatives in addition to their
children and grandchildren, with little support from government. The “invisible
burden” of the care economy is increasingly concentrated on older
women.

Poverty amongst the elderly is closely correlated to work in the informal
economies of urban and rural areas. Low and fluctuating incomes
throughout working life, coupled with poor coverage of social security
schemes, means that the likelihood of poverty in old age is high. Health risks,
including those resulting from hazardous working conditions, also mean that
many people have to live and work with disabilities that impair their earning
power. Since a large part of the economic contribution of women is through
household and informal economy activity, they benefit less from pension
schemes.

Women have a higher chance of losing their partners, and are less likely
to remarry than men. Women over 60 who have lost their partners greatly
outnumber their male equivalents. In some countries, widows are often denied
access to or control over resources. In addition, women’s inheritance
rights are poorly established in many societies. In some countries, the deceased
husband’s resources, including house, land, equipment and money,
may be distributed among other family members. In these countries, widowhood
is usually accompanied by a loss of status and therefore means more
than the loss of a husband – it also involves the loss of a separate identity.
The increasing number of widows over the next century will challenge
societies, not only to provide the necessary immediate support, but also to
ensure opportunities to become more self-supportive.

People who have been working in the informal economy are unlikely to
have made provision for their income security in old age. This is not a new
problem but, as the informal sector has recently been expanding, it will become
even more serious in the years ahead. In sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia, statutory social security personal coverage is estimated at 5 to 10 per
cent of the working population and in some cases is decreasing. In Latin
America, coverage varies widely from country to country, ranging from 10
to 80 per cent. However, there does seem to be a general stagnation. In
South-East and East Asia, coverage varies between 10 and almost 100 per
cent. Moreover, in many countries an increasing mortality rate amongst
prime-age providers as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic is severely
weakening already fragile social security systems.

Worldwide, the number of people aged 60 and over is growing faster
than all other age groups. Although developing countries still have a
relatively young population, the speed at which their populations are ageing
is faster than in the industrialized world. There is a pressing need to find effective
ways to extend social protection to begin to address poverty in old
age as well as other vulnerabilities. Minimum pension schemes are particularly
relevant for women workers after a life of low-paid jobs and a heavy
and continuing burden of family responsibilities.

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Article Tags: abject poverty, agricultural sector, aids pandemic, family responsibilities, feminization of poverty, formal economy, gender inequalities, grandchildren, hiv aids, informal economy, labour force, least developed countries, life cycle, mistaken belief, older women, person households, public expenditures, sad fact, twilight years, world women



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