Who is to care for the old, and how is the burden to be shared?
In many countries a growing share of people are old and a shrinking share are of working age. Who owes what to the old, and how is the burden to be shared between family, community and the state?
The picture
What the numbers show, read from the Data library each time the page opens.
How to read the chart above, and the words it uses (for older people).
How to read the data
The figure is the share of a country’s people aged sixty-five and over. A rise comes from people living longer and from fewer children being born, and it does not by itself say how well the old are cared for.
Key terms
Population ageing
A rise in the share of older people in a population.
Life expectancy
The average years a newborn would live at that year’s death rates.
Fertility rate
Births per woman over a lifetime, at the rates of one year.
Who has a stake
Each interest, then readings from the Catholic library and the Classics library that bear on it, oldest first. Choose a group to read.
To be honoured, to have what they need in sickness and want, and not to be treated as a burden or left alone.
To be able to honour their parents in practice, with time, money and help, without being worn out or left to carry the burden alone.
That what is asked of them is fair and does not take from their own children’s upbringing, and that each generation bears its share.
That no one is left without support in old age, that the system can be kept up, and that the family is helped and not replaced.
For discussion
How should a family’s duty to its old and the community’s duty to those without family be weighed against each other?
Each generation was once carried by the one before. What does fairness between generations ask of the working-age generation, and what does it not?
When the old live longer, what makes the added years a gift to be honoured and not a cost to be managed?
