Ageing
Spain's Dilemma
By: Flora Botsford
The BBC News, April 9, 2002
Many countries are facing the problems of an ageing
population, as people around the world get older and families are having
fewer children.
Not only in Europe and the United States but in large
parts of the developing world, societies are ageing while governments
stretch their social services to cope.
By 2050, Spain will have the highest average age in
the world.
As representatives of more than 160 member states
gathered in the Spanish capital, Madrid, to attend the Second United
Nations World Assembly on Ageing, I explored the way old people live in a
country famed for its family traditions and laid-back lifestyle.
The vast majority - 85% - of pensioners in Spain live
with family or in their own home, a high proportion by European standards.
But residential care for the elderly is growing in
popularity.
Family option
Surrounded by her 12 grown-up children, 26
grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, I met Rosa Maria Eguren
Zubigaray, an 83-year-old widow, and now head of the family.
She still lives in the family home, a spacious flat
in central Madrid where at one time the children were stacked up in bunk
beds, six to a room.
Her one unmarried son and two unmarried daughters
live with her and help in their mother's daily care.
This is very much the traditional life for Spain's
elderly population, and one Rosa Maria would not change for the world.
"There are more and more old people's
homes", she says, "and fewer people who are prepared to make the
sacrifice, or resign themselves to this situation - it's true.
"But I'm not moving from this house, that's for
sure."
But moving away from home into state-run,
semi-private or private residential care is the reality for a growing
number of pensioners in Spain.
Residential care
I visited a vast home for the elderly in Colmenar
Viejo, just outside the Spanish capital.
Offering more than 600 people a permanent home,
Gonzales el Bueno is the biggest residential care centre in Europe.
However, with more people living longer, the problem
is dealing with the demand: 20,000 elderly residents are on the waiting
list in the Madrid area alone.
The authorities currently foot 60% of the bill for
public residential care; the remainder the residents pay for it out of
their pension.
So why did some of the residents choose to come here?
"We're more comfortable here than in our own
homes" says Dolores Atienza Medina.
"We have heating and hot water, we have meals at
regular hours, you don't have the bother of preparing your own, here it's
more comfortable than at home."
And Fernando Monerris Terres, secretary of the
Residents' Association at the home explains:
"Nowadays our children all have to make their
own homes, look after their own families, their own children, so they
don't have time to stay with the old people."
But Spain and other countries in the industrialised
world will have to decide whether state provision for the elderly is
affordable in future.
Funding old age
If the proportion of people over 65 keeps growing,
and the birthrate keeps slowing, the individual will surely have to pay.
If the demand for residential care continues to grow,
what may happen in future is that even those at the bottom end of the
scale may have to increase their personal contribution
Spain could even be looking at Tony Blair's idea of
forcing people to sell their private property in order to pay for their
own care in old age, according to Eduardo Seyller Garcia, the manager at
the home.
"A person's individual contribution, whether it
be wealth in property, in shares, or pensions; in future they will have to
bring it with them to pay for their own care" he says.
For the majority of Spain's elderly population, these
calculations remain hypothetical: something for the next generation to
worry about.
With adequate state pensions and family support, the
emphasis in Spain is on enjoying old age to the full, with living longer
being something to look forward to, not dread.
Around the city, you see numerous older people
enjoying a life of ease: playing cards, chess, or petanca , a game like
the French boules, in the sunshine; strolling with their grandchildren in
the park, knitting, chatting, or just sitting.
Spain's six and a half million over 65s appear very
relaxed.
Despite government predictions that the proportion of
pensioners will rise from 16.2% to 20% by 2010, the debate about public
funding for senior citizens has barely started.
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