Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the human condition is structurally unequal
- Part I International anti-poverty policy: the problems of the Washington Consensus
- Part II Anti-poverty policies in rich countries
- Part III Anti-poverty policies in poor countries
- Part IV Future anti-poverty policies: national and international
- Appendix A Manifesto: international action to defeat poverty
- Appendix B Index of material and social deprivation: national (UK) and cross-national
- Index
thirteen - ‘A new branch can be strengthened by an old branch’: livelihoods and challenges to inter-generational solidarity in South Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the human condition is structurally unequal
- Part I International anti-poverty policy: the problems of the Washington Consensus
- Part II Anti-poverty policies in rich countries
- Part III Anti-poverty policies in poor countries
- Part IV Future anti-poverty policies: national and international
- Appendix A Manifesto: international action to defeat poverty
- Appendix B Index of material and social deprivation: national (UK) and cross-national
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The rapid growth in the numbers of older people is at the heart of the current global demographic transition. In the year 2000 there were about 550 million people over 60 years of age, a figure expected to reach 1.2 billion by 2025. The Ageing and development report (HelpAge International, 1999, p xii) dispels the assumption that older populations do not exist in the developing world as a myth – ageing populations everywhere are testimony to the fact that the development decades have seen some success. Improvements in hygiene, water supply and control of infectious diseases have greatly reduced the risk of premature death, so that older people no longer constitute a social policy issue associated primarily with the industrialised countries, referred to here as ‘the North’. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, a continent ravaged by complex emergencies and the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS, the proportion of people over 65 years is expected to increase by over 90% between 2000 and 2020 (Apt, 1997, p 4).
Nevertheless, the growth in life expectancy when accompanied by poverty is a mixed blessing, and the African experience of ageing is one associated with poor diet, ill health, inadequate housing, few material assets, and minimal incomes for the majority. As the HelpAge International Report goes on to point out:
Older people are often isolated, living on the margins of families and communities and deeply vulnerable. The extent to which they are reached by services and support is a litmus test of the development process.… Ageing is often perceived as a burden for countries and communities. But channelling resources to enable older people is an investment in society. (HelpAge International, 1999, pp xii-xiii)
The United Nations International Year of Older Persons (IYOP) in 1999 had as its theme, ‘Towards a society for all ages’, and its recipe for successful ageing was good health, work skills and self-knowledge. Importantly it acknowledged older people's contribution to development, and called for the creation of multi-generational social policies. The IYOP also pushed for a life course perspective, understanding older people within their wider communities (UNFPA, 1998). At one level this sat comfortably with the growing salience of a ‘sustainable livelihoods’ perspective (Chambers and Conway, 1992; Francis, 2000; Beall, 2002) which held prominence at the time in international development discourse (Carney, 1998, Carney et al, 1999; Rakodi and Lloyd-Jones, 2002).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- World PovertyNew Policies to Defeat an Old Enemy, pp. 325 - 348Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2002