Complications of Ageing - Research Paper Example

?COMPLICATIONS OF AGEING Affiliation Complications of Ageing Of all threats to the human society, it is ageing of the human population that outranks all other threats. Populations around the world are increasingly ageing as life expectancy increases coupled with falling birth rates. As it is, the proportion of senior citizens is higher in developed countries than in others; however ageing is becoming a global phenomenon. The developing countries will also experience an increase in the percentage of the elderly if their birthrates decrease and their population numbers stabilize. This paper seeks to discuss the social and economic issues associated with a steadily ageing population particularly ageing populations and pensions, health care, long-term care and disability, as well as the economy. The objective is to shed more light on how manageable that transition to old age might be, or will portend to the society. It is self evident that an ever increasing population of the elderly will predictably over whelm the resources available, at a national and global level. Over the next five decades the population of people above the age of 60 will around the world is expected to have more than doubled. It is projected that by 2050, the number of the elderly will for the first time in human history have outnumbered that of children around the globe. Alarmingly, in some countries, the number of senior citizens will be two times the number of children (Sieke, 2008). The impact of this transformation is being felt in every area of the human society today including economic growth, taxation, labor markets, transfer of property, family composition, health, housing and migration. This “demographic age-quake” is taking place in many countries as the reality of the extraordinary pace at which the world is ageing begins to be felt (Bloom, et al., 2010). The main problem with an ageing population to the society is the fact that these senior citizens depend on the younger ones for their care as well as for the economic productivity which ensures that pensions are paid and that social and health costs are met. I countries that have long life expectancy like Japan and those in Southern Europe, they face a sharper increase in the number of elderly people. It is expected that by 2020, more than one in every four Japanese will be over 65 years (Sieke, 2008). Aging is indeed inevitable, especially with the advancement of technology and science; people are bound to live longer today than ever before. However, many of the pension schemes around the world were not designed with the foresight of an increasingly graying society with much baby boomer generation now entering retirement. There have been debates on the having people work longer before their retirement, yet, even though this may look like a quick fix, it gets compounded when one considers the evens like 2010 French riots that were sparked by a two-year retirement age extension and the resistance that it is bound to attract (Bloom, et al., 2010). Ageing of the population has a direct ramification on the organization and delivery of health care. Of great importance will the inevitable shift from acute to chronic illnesses at the face of a growing shortage of health care workers, particularly the nurses and paraprofessionals. The ageing population will require there to be more focus on chronic diseases like heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and osteoporosis more that they would acute illnesses (Boersch-Supan and Ludwig, 2010). The shift from acute to chronic illnesses will require there to be a change from one-time interventions that aims to correct a single problem to situations where doctors and patients will need to have an ongoing relationship that will seek to help patients cope with illnesses as opposed to curing them, which will involve an ongoing management of many diseases and disabilities (Sieke, 2008). With chronic diseases comes disability, which means that long-term care services like nursing homes, personal care, home health, adult day care and congregate housing will certainly become fundamental sources of care. Further, there will be need for the development of new ways of integrating medical and long-term care services, which will prove to be substantially difficult for many countries due to the fragmentation of the financing and the delivery systems (Bloom, et al., 2010). There has been a growing concern of the current and future supply long-term care and acute workers particularly nurses and paraprofessionals like certified nurse assistants, professional care attendants and home health aides. A bulk of the long-term service care is provided by unskilled paraprofessionals who are mainly women and those drawn from racial and ethnic minorities. Recruitment and retention of such workers is faced by several challenges among them being low wages and benefits, heavy workloads and hard working conditions, and the stigmatization of the job by the society (Boersch-Supan and Ludwig, 2010). However, growing ranks of the elderly may not necessarily increase costs in al spheres of our society. Although the cost of healthcare rises with age, about one third of spending on community health services and hospitals is for individuals who are above the age of 65 – the ageing of the population as some would argue, has less impact on the health spending than many would want to think of it. The reason for such an argument is the fact that about a quarter of all healthcare a person consumes in their lifetime is spent in their final year on the earth, whenever that should be and as it is, that cost of this last year tends to go down with increasing age (Sieke, 2008). A study conducted in Scotland in 2008 indicate that a person who died at the age of 50 spent an amount of 7,500 pounds on health care in the final years of their life, as compared to approximately 3,000 pounds spent I the last year for a person dying at the age of 90 (Bloom, et al., 2010). If this holds truth, then the impact of an ageing population will not be to increase health service costs but to postpone it. However, there some uncertainties as people’s expectations change and those who are old in 209 years are likely to be more affluent and will be more demanding of treatments including hip replacement, new drugs and cataract operations. Figures indicate that the maximum lifespan which is 100 years has remained constant in the last century; however, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people approaching that age. Much of the research on health and ageing seem to point to the fact that increasing life expectancy will mean more years spent in declining health and increasing disability (Boersch-Supan and Ludwig, 2010). In the past, the senior citizens relied on the families for their daily care, however, today that has been significantly hampered by the fact that there is an increasing mobility within families coupled with rising divorce cases. In the future, the elderly are less likely to be married or to be cohabiting; many of them will be living alone. Among those aged above 85 and who will be living interdependently, a third of them will need help in ascending the stairs, and a quarter of them will need help in taking a birth (Sieke, 2008). It is estimated that the cost of caring for the elderly will increase fourfold in real terms in the next 30 years, and only a decrease in the levels of disability will lower that cost (Bloom, et al., 2010). In conclusion, the graying population poses a real challenge to the policy makers; however, it does not necessarily mean despair. Population and ageing indeed does raise some formidable and fundamentally new challenges, however, they are not insurmountable. With those challenge comes some new opportunities since people will have healthier and longer lives which will mean extended working years, and different capabilities and needs. We should work towards building a society that has a good equilibrium in that all age groups are balanced. However, we need to be ready for changes in demographics so as to able to provide our citizens both young and old with the best possible opportunities. References Bloom, DE. Et al. (2010). “Implications of Population Aging for Economic Growth”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 26, No. 4, 583-612. Boersch-Supan, A., and Ludwig A. (2010). “Old Europe is Aging: Reforms and Reform Backlashes,” In: Shoven, J. (Ed.), Demography and the Economy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 169-204 Seike, A. (2008). “Pensions and Labour Market Reforms for the Ageing Society,” in Conrad, Harald, Victoria Heindorf, and Franz Waldenberger, (eds.), Human Resource Management in Ageing Societies, Palgrave Macmillan: 29-42 Read More