IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/intssr/v55y2002i1p39-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ageing and the changing role of the family and the community: An African perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Nana Araba Apt

Abstract

Global ageing, the major social issue of the twenty‐first century, will have greater social repercussions for developing countries. The fastest increase of older persons in terms of ratio in relation to younger people is happening in developing countries, and in Africa segregation of older people in rural areas will become manifest. While beneficial changes for women have accompanied modernization in many of the developing countries, the situation of older women appears to be particularly precarious. Social changes brought about by modernization are also profoundly affecting the traditional systems of care for older people. Even though most older people requiring care are still looked after within the informal structures of the family, this can no longer be taken for granted as we move into the new century. This paper critically reviews social protection systems and the resource constraints which characterize developing countries and warns against blind development of social security systems based on those of the industrialized countries. The paper argues for the design of intergenerational support back into mainstream social relations so that older persons are not marginalized and put at risk through social protection programmes which reinforce physical vulnerability stereotypes and stress welfare needs over and above older people’s social and economic contributions to society

Suggested Citation

  • Nana Araba Apt, 2002. "Ageing and the changing role of the family and the community: An African perspective," International Social Security Review, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(1), pages 39-47.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:intssr:v:55:y:2002:i:1:p:39-47
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-246X.00113
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-246X.00113
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1468-246X.00113?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Randall, Sara & Coast, Ernestina, 2016. "The quality of demographic data on older Africans," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64834, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Delali A. Dovie, 2019. "Assessment of How House Ownership Shapes Health Outcomes in Urban Ghana," Societies, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-18, May.
    3. Sara Randall & Ernestina Coast, 2016. "The quality of demographic data on older Africans," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(5), pages 143-174.
    4. Michael W. Kpessa, 2011. "Provident Funds Pension Programs in English‐Speaking Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Look in the Rear Mirror and Lessons for the Future," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(3), pages 1-25, September.
    5. Busisiwe Chikomborero Ncube Makore & Sura Al-Maiyah, 2021. "Moving from the Margins: Towards an Inclusive Urban Representation of Older People in Zimbabwe’s Policy Discourse," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-21, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:intssr:v:55:y:2002:i:1:p:39-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1865-1674 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.