Where do old people live well?
Scientists have called Switzerland the best country for the elderly to live in
RIA News Switzerland turned out to be the most favorable country for elderly people to live in, where they receive maximum care and attention, Norway and Sweden are not far behind it, according to British scientists who prepared the global quality of life index for elderly people on Earth (Global AgeWatch Index 2015).
"The index we have prepared is the first step towards the full realization of the potential for each person at every stage of his life. Today, the proportion of older people is growing in all countries of the world. By 2050, 46 of the 96 countries in our index will be one-third populated by people over the age of 60. And we have only 35 years to prepare for such a future," said Toby Porter of HelpAge International, the organization that sponsored this study.
Porter and his colleagues from the University of Southampton (Great Britain) conducted a global census among the elderly inhabitants of the Earth, revealed their problems and described the advantages and disadvantages of each country for the lives of people aged by studying statistics provided by the UN as part of the initiative to develop an action plan for the sustainable development of the planet.
The main conclusion of the authors of this report, in addition to determining the top 10, was the discovery that the gap in life expectancy between the most comfortable and inconvenient countries for older people is steadily growing - it was only 5.7 years in 1990, and 7.3 years in 2012. On average, older people in the top ten countries live about 26 years after retirement, while in Afghanistan and other countries at the bottom of the ranking, this figure does not exceed 16 years.
In addition to Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, the top 10 also includes a number of European countries, the USA, Japan and Canada. Russia ranks 65th in this ranking, Ukraine – 73rd, and Estonia (23rd place) and Georgia (29th place) are the highest among the countries of the former USSR in it. Afghanistan closes the table, and Palestine, Pakistan, Mozambique and a number of African countries are located close to it.
Unexpectedly (??? – VM) According to scientists, Russia's low position is due to the current economic situation, rising food prices and the lack of a national policy to combat the consequences of the growing number of elderly people in the country's population, as well as the poor quality of the health care system.Another unusual result – the 60th place of South Korea – is due to the fact that most of the elderly people in this developed Asian state live in extreme poverty.
According to researchers, about half of retired Koreans are below the poverty line.
According to scientists, only about half of the world's states were included in the report, since not all governments of UN member states agreed to provide information about the social and economic situation of their elderly citizens. The authors of the report hope that in the future they will be more inclined to cooperate.
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09.09.2015