Ageing gives us cause for celebration: longer lives throughout the world are a triumph of development. The 21st century is seeing an unprecedented global demographic transition, with population ageing at its heart. By 2050 – less than 40 years away – older people (defined as aged 60 or over) will make up more than one-fifth of the global population.
Policy makers broadly agree that we can and should do better in measuring social and economic progress as a means to promote improvements. The result has been the emergence of a number of different indexes providing evidence that is useful for policy makers. However, none of the existing indexes provides a global picture of how well countries are doing to support the wellbeing of their ageing populations. A new index that measures the wellbeing of older people can focus attention on successes and assist that progress, as well as identify areas that need to be addressed.
The Global AgeWatch Index has been developed to provide this framework. It has brought together a unique set of internationally comparable data based on older people’s income status, health status, education and employment, and enabling environment. These domains have been selected because they were identified by older people and policy makers alike as key enablers of older people’s wellbeing.
Constructing The Global AgeWatch Index
The aim of the Index is both to capture the multidimensional nature of the quality of life and wellbeing of older people, and to provide a means by which to measure performance and promote improvements.
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Global AgeWatch Index 2013 comprises 13 different indicators for the four key domains of Income security, Health status, Education and employment, and Enabling environment where there is internationally comparable data.
Domain 1: Income security: Income security describes access to a sufficient amount of income, and the capacity to use it independently, in order to meet basic needs in older age.
Domain 2: Health status: Advancing age is linked to physical frailty and is also closely associated with risk of the onset of ill-health and disability.
Domain 3: Employment and education: This domain describes elements of the coping capacity and capability attributes of older people.
Domain 4: Enabling environment: Older people want to have the freedom of choice to live independent and self-reliant lives.
The overall Index is calculated as a geometric mean of the four domains. The domain-specific indexes are arrived at by aggregating values of indicators that represent how near a country is to the ideal value.
What Does The Index Tell Us?
The Global AgeWatch Index shows that good management of ageing is within reach of all governments. The rankings illustrate that limited resources need not be a barrier to countries providing for their older citizens, that a history of progressive social welfare policies makes a difference, and that it is never too soon to prepare for population ageing.
A running thread is that action in the key areas of income security and health is essential.
Money is not everything: The global ranking of countries shows that older people are faring best in Nordic, Western European, North American and some East Asian and Latin American countries.
Sweden (1) features in the top 10 in all four domains: Income security, Health status, Employment and education, and Enabling environment. The other places in the top 10 are filled by two more Nordic countries – Norway (2) and Iceland (9), three from Western Europe – Germany (3), the Netherlands (4) and Switzerland (6), two North American countries – Canada (5) and the USA (8), and two countries in Asia and the Pacific – New Zealand (7) and Japan (10). Austria (11), Ireland (12), the UK (13) and Australia (14) are also among the top 15 countries.
Older people fare less well in many African and East Asian countries – as well as in Jordan (88), Pakistan (89) and Afghanistan (91).
India’s Ranking
India stands a dismal 73rd in the list of 91 countries. India’s ranking is woefully low compared to neighbour Sri Lanka that has been ranked 36 while Nepal (77), Pakistan (89) and Afghanistan (91) score even worse.
About 8% of India’s total population is above the age of 60. In the coming decades, this is set to increase. Some states, like Kerala, already have a significant number of older people and, unless farsighted policies are implemented, their quality of life will not improve making old age something
However, there are exceptions to this pattern. The Index also highlights those lower-income countries that, regardless of their level of wealth, have invested in policies with positive impacts on ageing. In Sri Lanka (36), long-term investments in education and health have had a lifetime benefit for many of today’s older population. Bolivia (46), despite being one of the poorest countries, has had a progressive policy environment for older people for some time, with a National Plan on Ageing, free healthcare for older people, and a non-contributory universal pension.
Nepal (77) ranks 62 in the income security domain, having introduced a basic pension in 1995 for all over-70s without other pension income. Though limited in value and eligibility and with uneven coverage, this is an example of how a low-income country has chosen to make a start in addressing the old-age poverty challenge.
History counts: The Index shows that people in countries with a record of enacting progressive social welfare policies for all their citizens across the life-course are more likely to reap the benefits in terms of better health and wellbeing and a sense of social connectedness in old age.
Universal pensions: This year, Sweden (1) is celebrating the centenary of its universal pension, a system put in place at a time when the country was what would now be called an “emerging economy”. Similarly, Norway (2) introduced its universal rights-based pension in 1937, long before it achieved its current high-income status. Mauritius (33) introduced a universal pension in 1958.
Education: In countries of the former Soviet Union, the existence of education systems from which the current generation of older people benefited in earlier life helps to explain otherwise apparently contradictory outcomes.
Armenia (51) scores very high in the domain of employment and education (3) – a surprising result given that nearly three-quarters of adults over 50 live on less than US$103 per month.
Health: Good health is another factor that makes a key contribution to the wellbeing of older people and their health in a number of middle-income countries. Two very different Latin American countries – Chile (19) and Costa Rica (28) – appear as notable success stories in the health domain, with Chile ranking 10 and Costa Rica 11 in this domain.
It’s Never Too Soon To Prepare
A comparison with share of the population aged 60 and over shows that countries in regions where demographic ageing is far advanced mostly rank high in the Index.
Latin American countries – which face a doubling of their older population between now and 2050 – feature strongly in the top 30, where Chile (19), Uruguay (23), Argentina (26), Costa Rica (28) and Panama (30) all appear, and Chile makes it into the top 20.
The Index indicates that Eastern European countries need to make additional policy reforms, given their current and future challenges and opportunities linked with population ageing. Ukraine (66), Russia (78) and Montenegro (83) are ranked particularly low in the Global AgeWatch Index.
