INTRODUCTION

Today's population of older Cambodians lived through an exceptionally traumatic period of history during their adult years. Prolonged civil strife starting in the 1960s eventually led to the complete take over of the country by the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in 1975. During their fouryear rule, political violence, severe food shortages, and lack of medical care resulted in the deaths of as much as a fourth of the population (Heuveline 1998). Many who died were the children or spouses of today's older-aged population. Social dislocation, continuing political conflict, pervasive poverty, and an AIDS epidemic took their toll during the succeeding years resulting in further losses of family members. These events potentially threaten the core family support of older persons in a country that is among the poorest in Asia and where formal channels of assistance are minimal (Knodel 2007; Zimmer et al. 2006).

Population ageing is at an early stage in Cambodia with less than 6 per cent of the current total population being 60 or older, the lowest proportion of elderly of all the countries in Southeast Asia (Mujahid 2006). The low proportion of elderly in the population has resulted in the general lack of attention to issues related to older persons by the Cambodian government and most international agencies. Nevertheless, over one in four households or around 27 per cent has at least one member who is 60 or older. With recent prodding by UNFPA and HelpAge International, ageing is beginning to emerge as an issue on the government's agenda, although efforts are modest and mostly appear to be in the planning stages (Office of the Council of Ministers 2007; UNESCAP 2007).

Gender issues in general have received some attention in Cambodia, although the focus almost exclusively concerns the interests of women. Again this is in part, if not in the main, in response to the prompting and support of international agencies (UNIFEM et al. 2004; UNDP Cambodia 2008).

INTRODUCTION

The world has undergone significant demographic shifts since the second half of the twentieth century. Fertility rates have declined significantly—principally because women have gained greater educational levels—and for many of these women, marriage no longer promises the benefits it once did to earlier generations (Bongaarts 1999; Castles 2003; Jones 2003, 2004, 2007, 2009b; Kim 2005). For this reason, marriages are occurring at a later age as young women have found more reasons to resist or at least postpone this rite of passage (Jones 2003, 2004, 2009a). Another staggering demographic shift has been demonstrated by the ageing of populations with a doubling in average life expectancy compared with figures from the last century (Kinsella 2009). While these demographic trends have enormous repercussions on the economies of countries, older persons, in particular, have been labelled as a “burden” by governments since they are seen to place hefty demands on healthcare and social security systems and, in turn, to exert higher pressures on the productive population (Mujahid 2006; Mehta 1997a). Apart from the economic implications of this trend, the impact of population ageing on national security and the sustainability of families has also been flagged as critical concerns deserving of attention (Jackson and Howe 2008; Kinsella 2009).

One thing for certain is that the perception of older women and men has not been the same in the discourse on ageing populations. The social construction of ageing is distinctly gendered in that men and women have been found to experience life differently in their older age in part because of their gender. First, women have an obvious “demographic advantage” in that they live longer than men. This phenomenon which continues across the life course into old age has led to the coining of the phrase ‘feminization of ageing’ which suggests that there are greater proportions of older women than men (Kinsella 2009; Gist and Velkoff 1997). Whether experiencing a longer life expectancy is necessarily an advantage to women, however, is far more nuanced since larger proportions of them compared with older men tend to live greater number of years in disability.

INTRODUCTION

Studies on gender and ageing have generally established that with the “feminization of ageing”, older women face more vulnerabilities than older men. In Singapore, the 2004 AWARE-TSAO Foundation Report on Women and Income Security in an ageing Singapore population found that Singapore is similarly affected with this phenomenon, as shown in the sex ratio for age groups in Singapore. The 2000 Singapore census shows that the sex ratio increases drastically from 1.061 (females per 1,000 males) for those age 60–69 years to 1.72 (females per 1,000 males) for those age 80–89 years. Older women face more vulnerabilities pertaining to health and finances. In terms of health, older women have higher needs for long-term care (Chia et. al. 2008). As a survey in a nursing home in Singapore shows, 70 per cent of its residents are female, with the majority single, widowed, and above the age of 75 (Yap et. al. 2003). There is also a larger number of older women compared to older men living in one-or two-room public housing flats, which suggests a higher level of poverty among them. Most of the above mentioned older women are either single, widowed, divorced or separated. Older women tend to have fewer financial means as compared to older men as childcare has kept them out of the workforce for a greater number of years. Moreover, they tend to be lowly educated, with only 10 per cent of women age 60 and above receiving education beyond primary school level. Similarly, a study of the retirement needs of elderly Singaporeans concluded that older women face severe inadequacy in retirement financial needs — a posited 12 per cent higher than that for older men (Chia 2008, p. 36). These reports highlight the plight of older women. As Tsao Foundation's report of the study states: “The situation of older women in the future looks grim as there are fewer siblings to share the financial cost of care giving. Moreover, the older woman is likely to be widowed and frailer due to longer life span and old age disabilities.”

LIFE OF OLDER PERSONS

It is a very hot day in an overly-crowded and polluted street in Jakarta. When the traffic light turns red, out of nowhere a group of people emerge and start approaching the cars and motorcycles, begging for money. This group includes some older men and women who have resorted to begging so as to make ends meet. In Singapore, another big city in Southeast Asia, older men and women do “odd jobs” such as cleaning dirty tables at hawker centres and public toilets. Is this the kind of employment older people are expected to take on in some parts of Southeast Asia?

In contrast, there are many older men and women in Indonesia who do not do “anything”. They live in beautiful houses; they travel a lot for leisure; and they have rich children to support them. One older man works for a family business run by his son; he enjoys the work, not because of the money, but because of the nature of the job and also because it keeps him occupied. He also partakes in the profit from this business. Moreover his wife enjoys her leisure; she pursues her time exercising, visiting friends, meeting her children, children-in-law, and grandchildren. A question arises regarding the kinds of activities one would expect older persons to engage in. We could also ask if an older person who engages in wage work is better off than someone who does not? In essence, what kind of life should older persons be leading?

This chapter represents a preliminary attempt to provide the first and important step at answering that question, by analysing the employment patterns of older women in Indonesia. It provides information on what the older persons, particularly older women, do within and outside the labour market. The analysis relies on a national data set collected in 2007. Therefore, readers need to be careful when generalizing the findings in this chapter beyond 2007.

INTRODUCTION

The population of Malaysia is ageing gradually. Between 1970 and 2010, the proportion of the population age 60 and above to the total population increased from 5.2 per cent to 7.9 per cent. The number of older persons increased more than fourfold from a little more than half a million in 1970 to 2.25 million in 2010. By 2020, the number of older persons is projected to reach 3.2 million out of a population of about 32 million. The various ethnic groups in Malaysia are at different stages of ageing. In 2010, 12.2 per cent of the Chinese were age 60 and above as compared to 6.2 per cent of the other indigenous groups, 7.3 per cent among the Malays, and 7.9 per cent among the Indians.

Life expectancy at birth has gone up from 66.5 years for males and 71 years for females during the early 1970s to 71.9 years for males and 77 years for females in 2010 (Department of Statistics 2001 and 2011). According to the 2010 life tables, of those who would be alive at age 55, the number of years expected to be lived is about 21.5 years for males and 24.5 years for females. Gender differentials in life expectancy at various ages have given rise to feminization of the older population.

Despite the substantial increase in life expectancy, the retirement age remains at 55 years until recently for workers in the private sector. However, following the adoption of the Minimum Retirement Age Act 2012 by Parliament in the June/July session, the minimum retirement age of 60 for private sector workers was gazetted on 1 January 2013, and came into effect on 1 July 2013. Retirement age in the public sector was raised from 55 to 56 in 2001, to 58 in 2008 and further to 60 in 2013. With structural changes in the economy, an increasing number of workers have moved from the informal to the formal sector, and are subject to mandatory retirement.

INTRODUCTION

The two most common concerns of nearly all people as they reach the elderly years are their health and their economic security. These concerns are intrinsically interrelated; health problems are generally more common at advanced ages, as is diminished earning capacity resulting from retirement and the cessation of productive activity. Specifically, when health problems increase in old age, the costs incurred in seeking healthcare become a greater concern for an elderly person since the individual would more likely have to rely on savings to meet this need. In developed countries, formal support systems in the form of retirement benefits and pension plans ensure that most people who exit from the labour force in their elderly years are assured of economic sustenance, while health insurance systems take care of much of the financial burden of healthcare. In developing countries like the Philippines, formal support systems are still underdeveloped. As such, the majority of older people still rely on the traditional and informal sources of support provide kin when they themselves are not able to ensure their own economic and health needs (World Bank 1994). One indicator of the lack of an adequate formal support system for older individuals is the higher rate of labour force participation at these ages compared with countries with formal retirement systems (United Nations 2007; United Nations 2002). Typically, in the absence of such a formal system, there is no fixed and mandatory retirement age and people continue economic activity as long as they are physically and mentally able to do so. This period can be fraught with economic uncertainty if failing health threatens the older person's capacity to continue to provide for his/her own needs and that of his/her dependents.

Another common concern is the gender dimension of work and retirement. Much of the literature plays up the potential for unequal vulnerability to adverse economic and health outcomes between men and women.

INTRODUCTION

Over the last decade, the growing size of Vietnam's older population has prompted the government to pay more attention to the well-being of this group (Bui et al. 2000; Nguyen 1998; VCPFC 2002). The proportion of Vietnamese adults age 60 and above is projected to rise substantially from 8 per cent in 2000 to 13 per cent in 2025 and over 25 per cent by the mid twenty-first century (United Nations 2007a). Female old-age vulnerability has been placed in the forefront of government-funded social programmes to improve the living standards of the old (HelpAge 2007; Mitchell and Khuat 2000; United Nations 2002, 2007b). Influenced by the dominant policy discourse on gender and ageing, Vietnamese policymakers are concerned that older women would be more susceptible than men to various forms of hardship because they tend to experience socioeconomic disadvantage in early life and to be widowed in older years (Giang and Pfau 2007a; Ofstedal et al. 2003).

Recently the disproportionate policy focus on older women's vulnerability has been increasingly criticized for its lack of consistent evidence and for its dismissal of men's potential disadvantages (Knodel and Ofstedal 2003). For example, while women might be inferior to men in the labour market, they are not necessarily more vulnerable in later life since female elders tend to be more protected socially by family and kin network support. These criticisms also extend to the prevailing perspective on gender and health equity which posits that women are more likely than men to have poor health at older ages. The issue is particularly relevant to Vietnam's recent efforts to address the healthcare needs of its older population. While healthcare provision for the elderly, especially for female elders who are less likely to receive pension and health insurance, has been discussed widely in the public sphere, little is known about the extent to which health status in older years varies by gender and what mechanisms lie behind male-female differences (Thanh Nien News 2009; Vietnam News 2008).

Over the last two decades, gender has moved steadily up the agenda of interdisciplinary population studies, beginning with a number of early programmatic statements (Mason 1993; Greenhalgh 1994; Obermeyer 1995), and continuing via substantial collections (e.g. Bledsoe, Lerner and Guyer 2000) and in-depth studies (Basu 1992; Bledsoe 2002; Johnson-Hanks 2006). The increasing focus among demographers over the same period on consequences of demographic transition has made the conjunction of two themes — ageing and gender — inescapable. Demographic data at the national level readily show potentially significant economic and social differentials between men and women, and these data have been used to make a general case for important gender disadvantages in later life, particularly for women. The impact of disadvantages, by implication, accumulates across the life course. Thus, in Indonesia, women's disadvantage is found in variables like the years of education they receive, their income stream, whether they participate equally in formal sector employment, enjoy equity in marriage choices, and have equal access to pensions (Malhotra 1991; Rudkin 1993; Adioetomo and Eggleston 1998; Kevane and Levine 2003; Samosir, Tuhiman and Asmanedi 2004). The accumulative effects of these differences, however, are less clear. Women participate extensively in intergenerational transfers, leading some commentators to conclude that gender differences in support provision for older people are “practically non-existent” (Frankenberg and Kuhn 2004, p. 27). General patterns of economic and social change in which elders receive support from both sons and daughters, and which often give particular emphasis to daughters' roles in providing personal care, continue to follow tradition. In other words, most elders appear to find that both daughters and sons deliver — even though some gendered aspects of the life course, and elders' expectations about gendered kinds of support, remain unequal.

Generalized statements of gender disadvantage or advantage, no matter how systematic the survey data on which they rely, can only take us part of the way to understanding whether and how gender differences actually impact on later life.

INTRODUCTION

The importance of gender is a major theme in both social research and policy discussions related to population ageing (Mehta 1997 and 2004; Troisi and Pawiliczko 2008; UN INSTRAW 1999). It is a prominent issue in the Plan of Action stemming from the 2002 Second World Assembly on Ageing (United Nations 2002). Typically, the focus is on inequalities that presumably disadvantage older women with respect to their social and economic well-being and their physical and mental health. Rarely are aspects of ageing for which men share vulnerability or are disadvantaged highlighted (Knodel and Ofstedal 2003). Given that the link between gender and ageing likely varies across time and settings, adequate assessments of their interaction need to move beyond assumptions of universal female disadvantage and explore the experiences of both older men and women in specific societal and temporal contexts. The present study contributes to such an effort by comparing the situations of older women and men in contemporary Thailand based on the latest national survey of older persons. It thus brings several previous studies of gender and ageing in Thailand up to date (Knodel 2004; Sobieszczyk et al. 2003; Soonthorndhada et al. 2008). In conformity with the conventional definition used in previous studies, we define the older population as persons age 60 and more years.

THAILAND's DEMOGRAPHIC, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SETTING

Population Ageing

Starting in the late 1960s, Thailand experienced rapid and extensive fertility decline and improvements in life expectancy. By 2005, average life expectancy at birth exceeded 68 years and the total fertility rate was below two children per woman. At the same time, driven primarily by fertility decline, the share of the Thai population age 60 and above more than doubled (United Nations 2009). According to government projections, population ageing will continue at a rapid pace with persons age 60 and older expected to constitute one fourth of the population by 2030 (NESDB 2007). The trend is relatively similar for the older male and female populations although ageing will occur at a modestly faster pace for women than for men.

INTRODUCTION

The issue of “care for” and “care by” older people has strong gender dimensions. Older women, extending the traditional role of caregiver and homemaker, tend to predominate as caregivers. Research has shown that as the life expectancy of older women surpasses that of men, they are more likely to provide care for their spouses rather than to receive it (ARROWs for Change 1999; UNESCAP 1991). Moreover, it has been documented that grandparenting is a role increasingly thrust upon older women by the younger generation of women entering the workforce because of the lack of suitable childcare facilities and services (Gray 2005; Ling 2007). However, in terms of receiving care, older women are found to be at the losing end, even to the extent of becoming vulnerable to neglect and abuse (Aitken and Griffin 1996; Whittaker 1995).

Research has also drawn attention to the possibility that older men may experience similar vulnerabilities to older women or in some aspects be even more disadvantaged (Knodel and Ofstedal 2003). Research has also shown that care of older people is strongly influenced by cultural norms, traditions of inheritance and exchange, and by different government services and income support systems. Generally, there is a difference between the way care is provided to older people in developed and developing economies, and in Southeast Asian regions, as much as in the rest of Asia, more emphasis has been placed on the family (Liu and Kendig 2000).

With an increasing ageing population in Sarawak, Malaysia, a culturally diverse society undergoing rapid urbanization, care of older persons is an issue that merits examination. This chapter explores the experiences of older men and women as caregivers and care-receivers in both formal and informal systems of care. Drawing on the findings of a larger study called Ageing in Sarawak: Needs, Impact and Emerging Issues (Social Development and Urbanisation Council 2005), this chapter examines the impact of gender on caregiving and care-receiving, taking into consideration rural/urban variations, socio-economic differences and, where relevant, ethnicity.

INTRODUCTION

Older women are often perceived as more vulnerable to social, economic, and health disadvantages. It is often surmised that gender discrimination is the main cause for the disadvantages they face. In situations where social structures reinforce such gender biases, particularly in education and employment opportunities, the cumulative effect of earlier life experiences render older women generally poorer than men. There are those who argue that the perceived disadvantaged position of older women may be an oversimplified global generalization which ignores the substantial variations in the relative situations of older men and women (Ofstedal, Reidy, and Knodel 2004; Knodel and Ofstedal 2003). In the Philippines, for example, the legal framework affirms equality for all citizens regardless of gender, which has helped ensure a relatively high degree of protection of its women. This is not to say that gender equality has been fully achieved, given the discrimination against women that continues to prevail in some sectors in the Philippines. It is thus important to understand the gender situation, particularly on the economic front among the older cohort, most of whom come from the generations that preceded the enactment of policies and programmes that have protected the rights and privileges of women in the country.

This chapter aims to provide an empirical analysis of the economic well-being of older Filipinos highlighting differences across gender and marital status groups. It explores the levels and differentials in economic status of older people using various objective and subjective indicators of economic well-being. The extent to which subjective and objective indicators of economic well-being interrelate with each other is likewise examined so as to generate a more appropriate measure for assessing the economic well-being of older Filipinos. This analysis is of importance in a low-income country such as the Philippines where a third of the country's population is currently living in poverty (UN OCHA, n.d.), with the older sector expected to be more vulnerable to economic liabilities.

Until recently, the violent conflict in Southern Thailand had been captured in terms of historical oppression by the Thai state, and the economic and social exclusion of the Malays as well as related questions of legitimacy. In contrast to these narratives, this book argues that an analysis of the meanings of violence should not be reduced to the facades of popular narratives and declared intentions, as such an approach would place scholars themselves at risk of becoming part of the process of staging violence. Accordingly, this book explores the hidden channels of communication and the organized violence behind such facades in order to understand the enduring rebellion, which moves beyond dichotomous notions such as nationalism versus jihad, “new” network-like organized versus “old” vertically organized armed groups, or claim-taking versus silence.

To understand these ambivalences, it is important to take into account the ability of insurgent groups to adjust to changing social and political contexts. Similar to companies in a free market, they have to adapt and innovate constantly. To be successful, they must develop new violent and non-violent strategies that are able to both undermine state legitimacy and mobilize the masses. They have to be innovative in terms of their ideological repertoire in order to gain charismatic appeal; however, in doing so, they must stay within the lines of what is culturally accepted. The cost of failure can be much greater for them than for companies, as violence is a brutal mechanism of selection: in the best case, they simply fall by the wayside, while in the worst case, their members are killed in significant numbers and their political objective is left unrealized.

In reaction to the defeat of earlier Malay rebellions in Southern Thailand, BRN-Coordinate underwent a major organizational adjustment. Although other separatist groups gave up their old-style guerrilla fights in the 1980s and 1990s, BRN-Coordinate proved to be astonishingly capable of re-designing itself, thereby establishing the foundation for the latest round of insurgency. This transformation was twofold in nature. First, instead of full-time guerrillas hiding in the jungle, the current insurgency is based on a part-time guerrilla-cum-terrorist force that hides in the villages and takes advantage of the state's limited control at the local level. Second, the group introduced village-based mass indoctrination using a mixture of nationalism and the jihadist thought that had become globally prominent.