PRESS
RELEASE
The ICPD+5 review
process
Expert Warns Developing
Countries on Costs of Western-style Social Security Systems, as
Technical Meeting Enters Final Day
BRUSSELS, 9 October 1998 -- It would be unwise
for developing nations to forsake their traditional familial support
systems for the elderly in favour of costly Western-type social
security systems, Shigemi Kono of Reitaku University in Kashiwa,
Japan, warned today. Asian models that combine family help and
savings from elders' prime working years may provide a better way to
enhance self-reliance, he suggested on the final day of the
Technical Meeting on Population Ageing.
The four-day meeting,
which will end later today, is part of "ICPD+5", the review of the
achievements of the 1994 International Conference on Population and
Development (ICPD). It was organized by UNFPA in cooperation with
the Population and Family Study Centre, a Flemish Scientific
Institute in Brussels. Participants reviewed the experiences of
developed countries on population to identify practices that can be
adopted by their developing counterparts.
In his paper on
social policy implications, Mr. Kono suggested that workers should
buy homes as early as possible to improve their options and
guarantee themselves some cash flow later in life. Governments and
local authorities should help workers buy their homes by setting up
adequate banking and loan systems in developing countries, including
in the rural areas.
Furthermore, he stressed, old-age
security schemes to alleviate poverty must also address gender
inequality: in addition to their widespread lack of property and
inheritance rights, most elderly poor women lack work experience and
face discrimination. Greater efforts should be made, he said, to
raise public awareness of the plight of older women and to extend
measures to meet their basic needs and lift them from
poverty.
"Education is perhaps the most important weapon with
which the elderly or elderly-to-be would be able to prepare for and
continue to be active and productive in the aged society of the 21st
century," Mr. Kono concluded.
Speaking on how to adapt
institutions to meet the needs of the elderly, Yap Mui Teng, a
senior research fellow at Singapore's Institute of Policy Studies,
said that her country will raise the retirement age from 60 to 62
next year and, probably, to 67 in the year 2003, to enable greater
numbers of older workers to remain in the workforce.
Support
for the elderly in Singapore, she said, reflects a "many helping
hands" approach involving families, communities and the Government.
Support by families and informal social networks is complemented by
community-based services, including home help, rehabilitation
centres and nursing facilities, provided by voluntary agencies. The
Government comes in as a facilitator, bringing the various sectors
together and creating enabling environments.
The proportion
of people aged 65 and older is expected to rise in Singapore from 7
per cent to 18 per cent in the next three decades. The Government's,
Ms. Yap reported, include providing tax exemptions of about $3,500
for each parent housed by a taxpayer, the enactment of a law giving
the elderly the right to sue for support from capable children, and
retraining programmes to upgrade the skills of middle-aged and older
workers.
The current meeting is being held a week after this year's
International Day of Older Persons, during which the United Nations
declared 1999 the International Year of Older Persons. Ageing also
is one of the main themes of UNFPA's flagship publication, The State of World
Population 1998, entitled "The New
Generations".
(For information purposes only. Not
an official document.)
|