United Nations launches year of older persons
10/6/1998 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York
UNITED NATIONS (UMNS) -- As a child in Panama, Esmeralda Brown found security in the strong, intergenerational family structure that supported her.
Nowadays, however, those structures - in Panama and elsewhere - cannot meet the needs of a growing elderly population.
"We no longer can count on the church and the family to alleviate the worst cases of deprivation of the elderly," said Brown, a staff member with the Women's Division, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.
She was among the speakers at the United Nations' Oct. 1 launch of the 1999 International Year of Older Persons. The year's theme is "Towards a Society for All Ages."
One of the year's events will be an Oct. 16, 1999, satellite teleconference on aging produced by the United Methodist Teleconference Connection.
The observance points to the fact that the number of people age 60 and older will reach 600 million by the year 2001. It is projected to hit 1.2 billion by the year 2025, with more than 70 percent of those people living in developing countries.
This "silent revolution" extends beyond demographics to the need for an enabling environment for a healthy lifestyle as people age, according to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
"A society for all ages is one that does not caricature older persons as patients and pensioners," he said.
Noting that his 60th birthday had occurred less than six months ago, Annan added: "I am an older person, and I'm proud of it."
The observance of the International Year of Older Persons is a way to place issues facing the elderly on the public agenda, said Julia Alvarez, the Dominican Republic ambassador who was instrumental in urging the U.N. General Assembly to designate the year.
"Perception precedes politics," she declared. "The image of older people as full, useful and active citizens must become firmly implanted in the popular imagination."
In her keynote address, Gunhild Hagestad, a sociology professor at both Agder College in Norway and Northwestern University in Illinois, noted that "many of the present oldest old never expected to reach their current age." Early in the century, she explained, disease, famine and other dangers often interrupted lives.
The rapid changes in survival patterns not only have created "surprised survivors," but also have overwhelmed planners and politicians unready to deal with the burgeoning elderly population, she said. The same improvements in living conditions have resulted in "the largest-ever generation of young people on every continent except Europe," she said.
Among the lessons learned about aging during recent decades is that "old dogs can learn new tricks," Hagestad said. "Our basic abilities stay remarkably stable into old age. …With maturity may come increased readiness to live without clarity and closure, but with a clearer sense of priorities."
Being old does not mean being sick and helpless. "In societies with sizable populations of old-old people, studies have shown that even among individuals over 80, a majority manage daily living on their own," she said.
But social support is critical in maintaining productive activity and psychological functioning. And old age encompasses both biographical and historical time. "Different historical generations age differently, and consequently, we can in no way assume that today's 60-year-old will be like current 80-year-olds in 20 years," Hagestad pointed out.
Developing a "society for all ages," she said, means fighting age segregation in housing and social settings; maintaining historical conversations between the old and the young; and finding continuity, in terms of both needs and opportunities, across various phases of life.
More information on the International Year of Older Persons is available from Global Action on Aging, a nonprofit organization that focuses on the needs of the elderly, at (212) 557-3163.
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