Ageing society: celebrate or worry

Ageing society: celebrate or worry


Over the years, I have found that walking and people watching has become one of my sources of understanding society at large and these observations are reinforced by the literature that I come across.
I doubt many will know that October 1 was the world old people's day. With the reports being published that India is one of the worst places to retire, the constant rise in retirement homes and rising crimes against older people, seems that unless the policy makers looked upon seriously now, I might be in deep trouble in 2050's :(
One of the key determinants of Ageism (age based discrimination) can be attributed to the concept of 'Retirement'. The industrial revolution has without any doubt created more jobs and reformed education that it can have the right set of skills to fill its demand of laborers, but unfortunately this phase of being employed and worth is so much woven together. With the rise in rapid urbanization there is a shift from joint family system to more nuclear systems, this has brought out new set of dynamics in the way this generation respects elders. In today's world the worth of any being is undermined the moment one is unemployed rather to put it precisely, if one does not contribute financially him/her worth is not valued. Without any doubt we are moving to that phase of undermining older people especially after retirement, even they are taken to some of the most crowded places, left to get lost and end up in old age homes.
In addition, women who are old are never ever recognized for their work as caregivers for their grandchildren and we take them for granted. If you ever look at the invisible economic contribution older women make one would never want to undermine them. Their presence at home is a moral support, they serve the family the traditional knowledge on homemade curing agents when sick, take care of our kids and allow us to enjoy our work and life balance.
Looking at the longevity of older people and less fertility rates, there is going to be a huge crunch for resources. Unfortunately, there is no structural mechanisms to take care of older people when they retire. to understand this I wanted to observe the state of older people for a day in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. I spent a day alone, filled my tank with petrol and rode in the streets, temples, church and to places I could in Chennai. It is a sad state of affairs to see almost all the religious places had its entrances with a huge proportion of old people, almost all the ATM's I could see only grey hairs, you sit down in the beach you could witness old people begging for money, walk into any security guard I bet they should be old people, go to any restaurants you could see them in the parking spaces helping you assist your vehicles for some money.
To feed my inquisitiveness, I asked a security guard what about your family, he said his wife had passed away and his only son who was married met with an accident during his job and all the savings were spent on curing him. but, his life did not hold enough as he passed away suddenly leaving behind his wife and 2 yrs old daughter. So, he said, there is no one for us and hence I have to feed them both. The salary is very less (Rs.8000 Per month/ $123), i get some tips with which I buy some snacks for my grand daughter. Another elderly man mentioned that, their children were kind with him as long as the property was under his name, after the transfer of property to their children he mentioned, they treated him as a worthless being and a mere burden to them. Finally, I met a woman along with her older sister was seeking alms, while asking one young man her replied to them "why cant you work and earn", I was so shocked and disturbed on the state of older people, are the younger population losing its age old tradition of revering elders?
These couple of paragraphs are just a minuscule of what happens to them. Moreover, I have to be sure that I should not end up like the ones whom I meet. Ageing society is for real and looking at the attentions global warming has earned, societies should start acting now. This should start from educating children on sound values to noising the government on reformed policies for ageing population.

Picture : Andrews Abraham (Warsaw, Poland)

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