I am looking forward to the forthcoming seminar series on “SDGs, Ageing and Global Development” at the Institute. It promises to raise and discuss many issues that I find important. The speakers are going to examine the SDGs at the interface of ageing and intergenerational development. Demographic change, which includes the ageing of populations as well as their growth, frames the challenges of economic and social development, and a sense of its implications is woven into the articulation of most of the Sustainable Development Goals. Progress towards the achievement of these goals requires governments to acknowledge and facilitate the economic and social contribution of older people, and some governments are better at this than others.
If we look at the social context of ageing in some Eastern European countries the point emerges very clearly. There are European states that lie to the East of the EU, like Ukraine and Belarus, where the governments show “concern” with rapid ageing of populations, and yet it is not hard to make the case that their older people are disempowered and often stigmatized.
Language can sometimes tell us about attitudes and values, and this is what we find in both countries. The label “old” is typically linked with the age of retirement, and the age of retirement is low: around 56 for women and 61 for men. You are old once you retire. I would argue that the language for exit from labour force and the social condition that comes with it influences the way that people think about that condition, and it can be stigmatizing. For example, there is no direct translation in Russian language of the word “retirement”. It is the act of “becoming a pensioner”, i.e. withdrawing from workforce and starting to receive a pension. There has been universal pension coverage and a low pension age since the time of Soviet rule, and virtually everyone over 60 years old is still described as a “pensioner”. As pensions are quite low throughout the region, the social condition of “pensioner” is strongly associated with dependency and survival on a bare minimum, and their status reflects this understanding. Older people or pensioners are also categorised, together with children below 16, as “unable to work” (нетрудоспособные). In other words, they are officially described as economically dependent. The description underpins the institutionalisation of exclusion from the active work force. Older people are disregarded as possible contributors to the ‘social product’ based on an arbitrary number.
The idea of “active ageing”, moreover, does not translate straightforwardly into Russian, which suggests that Western-type policies for the promotion of active ageing would require a lot of adaptation to take root in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). A lot of older people in Eastern European countries wish to continue working beyond the pension age, mainly because it is very difficult to survive on a pension. There is, however, another big motivator for continuing in paid employment, and that is to provide help for children and grandchildren, which ranges from having money to buy treats for grandchildren to contributing towards the costs of university fees or everyday upbringing. I would argue that older people in these countries attach a lot of value to their ability to contribute to their families both financially and with their time, and they try to avoid “burdening” anyone with their needs (from personal interviews), and around one in five continue to work beyond retirement age. The types of jobs available to older workers are generally low-skilled and low-paid, however. They are the jobs that nobody else wants to do for the money. Having little real alternative, partly because their specific skillsets and working capabilities, and partly because of the rigidity of labour markets, older people keep filling these jobs. Older workers, moreover, are systematically excluded from the possibility of re-training and upgrading their skills. The informal or grey economy is relatively large in the CIS countries, and it is not surprising therefore that this is where older people tend to find work. Many older people still keep “dachas” (like allotments) where they grow vegetables and fruit, and sometimes they and their extended families rely on the sale of this produce to ‘make ends meet’. Seasonal work, like picking berries or mushrooms, growing flowers, making preserves, all add to the array of income sources that are still drawn on by older people. This is how older people kept themselves and their families out of poverty during the hardships of economic transformation, and they still do it. This is labour-intensive work, and the fact that it is part of the informal economy means that it doesn’t appear in national statistics.
These are the circumstances in which keeping busy to get by has become the dominant form of “active ageing”. As far as social participation is concerned, there is little effort to include and involve older people in social life outside the household. Because they are classified as “unable to work”, their interests and needs move to the bottom of policy agendas. They are ‘bought off’ with a small pension, and policy makers think themselves justified in dismissing the claims of older people for more opportunities and an enabling environment. Time use data suggest that older people spend about half of their spare time watching TV whereas their participation in social events and public places is minimal.
Not only is the contribution of older people vastly undervalued, but they are confined to the margins of society. This is what it is like being old in the CIS. It is the typical experience of ageing in these transition countries. The wider economy as well as their own families benefit from their contributions, and both would both feel the loss of these contributions.
Academics, policy makers and the public all need to change the ways they think about ageing and their older citizens as a starting point to building sustainable societies and economies. I hope that all governments will show themselves to be equally capable of acknowledging the tremendous contribution made by older people and make the ideal of leaving no one behind a social reality.
About the Author
Katia Padvalkava is a sociologist researching ageing and working in later life in Central and Eastern European countries.
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