Comments from IFA

Comments from IFA

By email:

"irene hoskins" <>

11/09/2007 02:22

Dear Andres,

Having missed the deadline for submission of suggestions for the Ministerial Declaration due to the time difference between Europe and the US, please allow me to add a few more comments from the perspective of the International Federation on Ageing (IFA).

First, however, I would like to thank you for giving the NGOs an opportunity to comment and, on a personal level, for including me in the preparatory process. The IFA is a global organization which groups together membership organizations of older people or NGOs working on behalf and for the well-being of older persons around the world. Some of the biggest of its membership organizations are located within the UNECE Region.

There are basically four areas in which I would like to submit brief comments on behalf of IFA:

1. Gender issues: the Declaration fails to acknowledge that gender matters. Older women outlive and outnumber older men in all parts of the UN ECE Region. Their incomes are often lower than those of older men due to a number of well-known factors, such as interrupted and therefore shorter work lives due to family caring responsibilities and the continuing earnings gap in earnings for men and women. At the same time, life expectancy for males has declined in some areas of the UNECE Region. It remains unsubstantiated but is certainly a matter of speculation to which extent gender issues relating to social roles and perceptions have contributed to unhealthy lifestyles among males which in turn have shortened life expectancy. We therefore believe that the Declaration should acknowledge the fact that gender issues have to be taken into consideration when it comes to finding the root causes of many of the issues affecting older men and women.

2. Health and wellbeing: We suggest a slight change in the last sentence of Para 8 (initalics): Policies taking an integrated life course approach, including health promotion and prevention policies, allow people to reach old age in better health and security.

3. Work: We would like to see a strong commitment from the Ministerial Conference to eliminate age discrimination and its negative impact through new policies and incentives to retain older workers in the labour force when they so desire. The importance of pension policies that link continuing contributions with increased economic security at older ages should be stressed. We see little evidence that low birth rates necessarily result in improved legislation with respect to combining work with family responsibilities. Other factors relating to gender perceptions and changing gender roles may well have longer term impacts on improving birth rates On the other hand, there is some evidence that policies, such as crediting caregiving periods for pension calculations, help to reduce the gender gap for establishing adequate pensions for both women and men

4. New and emerging issues: Among these is the issue of elder abuse which must be recognized and prevented through public awareness and education campaignsl

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to comment.

I look forward to attending the Leon Conference and send best regards,

Irene

Irene Hoskins

President

IFA