The elderly seldom have it easy, anywhere. Although the global life expectancy has been steadily inching up (now reaching 70), the quality of life for the senior citizens is on a decline in the face of their growing isolation.
Traditionally, in the eastern cultures, the old people used to live in extended families. The hard work they put into raising their children was expected to be paid back in love, gratitude and care later in their lives. [break]
Sadly, joint families where the elders were loved and respected (yes, even clichés can be true) are disappearing as the culture of individualism takes hold of the Nepali society. These days most of the elderly people in Nepal live by themselves. In the villages, the vast majority of the youth has either left for big cities, or gone to the Gulf for hard labor.
In urban hubs, it is the dream of middle-class youth to go abroad for studies, with most of them settling outside for good. The fear that a few years down the line there will be no one left in the country except the old and the infirm is now too serious to taken as a joke. Of course, the challenges of an aging society are not limited to Nepal. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has pointed out, “By 2050… the number of older persons in developing countries is expected to double. This trend will have profound effects on countries and individuals.”
October 1 was the International Day of Older Persons, celebrated this year under the theme “The future we want: what older persons are saying”. The day hoped to draw the attention “to the efforts of older persons, civil society organizations, United Nations organizations and Member States to place the issue of ageing on the international development agenda.” Such events come and go, but it does put into perspective the scale of the challenge here. According to the 2011 national census, 8.14 percent (2.5 million) people in Nepal are senior citizens.
While the country’s population growth is a healthy 1.4 percent, the population of senior citizens is increasing at six percent per annum. They are living longer because of improvement in their access to healthcare services, but while they might have added quantity to their lives, for most senior citizens in Nepal the quality of life is wretched. The proliferation of rehabilitation centers for the elderly is good news (we care), the phenomena also raises a troubling question about our changing social and cultural values, with enormous ramifications for the elderly population.
The government might come up with many new programs to support the elderly. It already has a few. But the hardest challenge might be to inculcate a sense of responsibility towards the elderly among the young generation.
Small things like allocating seats for the elderly in public transport, providing them with stipends, and looking for the upkeep of homeless elderly show the old people that the society cares. Hopefully, the new constitution will have strong provisions to protect the rights of senior citizens in Nepal as well. More than that, it is a matter of continuously reminding the youth that they have an enormous debt to pay.
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