We can expect to live far longer than our parents and grandparents. The average life expectancy of Emiratis has increased from 53 in the 1960s to 80 years for women and 74 for men. It will continue to rise as medical care improves. This means that the number of Emiratis over 65 will increase over the next few decades and we need to act now to prepare for this.
We currently rely on the extended family to look after elderly relatives and we don’t have enough health facilities for older people or specialists in geriatric medicine. There aren’t enough centres where the elderly can interact with their peer group. But, with a population that is expected to be significantly older by the middle of the century, we need to be able to cope.
The first step in plugging the gap is to understand the problem. As The National reports today, sociologist Dr Mohammed Firoz believes that the lack of a public support system for the elderly is directly related to the lack of information about the extent to which we are ageing. Statistics are few and outdated, making it difficult to formulate policy, implement it and evaluate effectiveness.
Clearly, better data is needed. And it should be disseminated widely to trigger a debate on international best practice and the local context. We need to understand the role of rapid social and economic change 43 years after the UAE was founded. People have become wealthier, women have joined the workforce, expectations have changed. The trend towards smaller families often makes it harder to care for elderly relatives. Space in city apartments may be at a premium, many more young people may be working outside their home emirate or abroad, and with women at work as well, who will look after meals, medicines and hospital appointments for elderly parents?
That may sound discouragingly difficult but it's been done before. Other countries have had to deal with changing demographics and society. In Japan, which has one of the oldest populations in the world, the government sponsored a social programme that removed the stigma attached to putting elderly parents into care homes. That was in 2000 and it led to a huge cultural shift. What worked for them may not for us but we do need to recognise that we have to prepare for what lies ahead. Time is on our side – but not for long.
