Reverencing Age

One of the curious accompaniments of development, globalization, economic progress, and modernization is a tendency to disparage the elderly. Of course, every generation laments the young’s lack of consideration for their elders, but new social forces are intensifying the impatience of youth and the discontinuities between the generations.

In the South, traditional societies are rapidly disintegrating under the impact of modernization. It is a common complaint that there has been a loss of respect for seniors, although the truth is far more complex. In traditional cultures, particularly poor ones, the old were considered survivors. Their stories of hardship had practical value for a new generation, who saw in the elderly their own uncertain future. With increased demographic mobility, however, provincial life has been greatly affected. The young have become the leaders, and the elderly are left powerless.

It is a tragic irony that the great growth in the numbers of aged should occur at such a time. Until today, the old have represented only a small proportion of the people in any society, and the relative scarcity of such survivors endowed them with the advantage of experience. Because life expectancy was still only 40 years in India at the time of independence, seniors were rare. It is, perhaps, not by chance that the decay of the power and authority of the old should have happened at the very moment when they became so numerous.

Sweeping social, cultural, and moral changes come in the wake of economic developments and cannot easily be separated from them. In the developed world, not only has the value placed on the experience of the elderly been degraded, but their skills and abilities have also been rejected. Rather than move toward the prolongation of working life, many societies have chosen to disemploy people over 50, who are accused of being too old-fashioned and inflexible to compete in the global market. In developing countries, the great reservoirs of practice and custom lie neglected. Accumulated cultural wisdom is being discounted as the new generation develops expectations that break from the poverty and frugality of their parents and grandparents. Modernization tends to dissolve customary relationships, tear the fabric of kinship, and corrode the chains of human connectedness.

The Future of the Aged

Even the economic resources of the developed world are no longer secure. The power of the graying dollar, yen, or euro is unlikely to be sustained. Indeed, it may be that the earlier generation of elderly will come to be seen as having lived in a golden time for seniors. As the pensioners of Enron and other spectacular corporate failures have discovered, the aged must make their own private accommodation, not only with the existential certainties of sickness and aging, but also with the global system of wealth and power as they are thrown into the increasingly threadbare monetary safety nets that have protected them until now.

Worldwide, one million people turn 60 each month. In 2001, 10 percent of the world’s population was already 60; by 2050, this number will reach 20 percent, by 2150, possibly 33 percent. The fastest growth will be in developing countries—already home to 58 percent of the world’s elderly—where this proportion will rise to 70 percent within 10 years. The majority, 55 percent, of older persons are women; among the over 80 demographic, this figure rises to 65 percent. Although the projected figures may be contested, the trend is clear: in the last half of the 20th century, 20 years were added to the average lifespan, raising global life expectancy to 66 years.

The fate of the elderly exemplifies the ambiguous advantages of economic progress: although such progress increases the wealth of a state, it also yields the externality of a larger elderly class unable to contribute to the new goals of a fast-paced society. The UN Second World Assembly on Aging in Madrid, Spain, was certainly well-intentioned to issue programs and resolutions in 2002, but the great sweep of globalization will ultimately determine the destiny of the elderly. As always, the poor are left to resolve the contradictions. If they choose to have children to look after them in sickness and infirmity, the resulting population explosion will threaten to overwhelm the planet. If they fail to have enough children, the aged will face mass destitution.

Of course, the countries of the South also have an abundance of impoverished, hungry, and jobless youth—in India there are tens of millions of unemployed graduates whose energy and exuberance are unwanted by the global market. It is a meager consolation for them that they should wait 30 or 40 years before being set to work to redeem their longevity. Many members of the new generation are left with the knowledge that both their youth and their age will be seen as a burden.