Nation must plan to care for ageing populace

Vietnam must prepare to care for an ever increasing number of elderly, advises Vietnam Social Science Institute’s Foreign Affairs Department Deputy Director Dang Nguyen Anh.

“Vietnam’s population will be old before the country becomes wealthy,” he said.

And the growing number of elderly will put pressure on families, health services (including mental health); social welfare policy, lifestyle and transport.

A National-Committee-for-Population-Family-and-Children survey last year found that more than 70 percent of Vietnam ’s population remains rural dwellers.

Most of the rural elderly have had to rely on agriculture for their livelihood. Unable to save for their old age, they are dependent on their children.

“This reinforces the need to develop social welfare policy for old people,” said Population and Social Affairs Institute Director Nguyen Dinh Cu.

Such a policy will have to emphasise the development of care suitable for the elderly in an industrial society, he explains.

An example is retirement homes. These are now few in number but will have to be increased for those who can afford them.

The director also suggests that organisations and industries should be encouraged to open retirement homes.

But it will be necessary to have the young comfortable to have their parents been cared for in retirement homes, he said.

The elderly, in turn, should accept the model and realise that their children have not neglected their duty to them.

The proportion of Vietnam’s population older than 60 totalled 9.45 percent last year.

The figure is forecast to rise to about 18 percent within the next twelve years with the proportion of young people in the workforce falling very quickly, said the deputy director.

A country’s population is ageing when the number of elderly is above 10 percent, according to the United Nations.

Life expectancy for Vietnamese was about 71 in 2005, up from 68 in 2000.-