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Gearing up for the aging population: Challenges for Indonesia
Greater emphasis should be placed on pension funds, healthcare spending for seniors, public health insurance and legal protections.
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An elderly woman crochets in her room at Griya Wreda nursing home in Surabaya, East Java, on Jan. 5, 2024. (Antara/Didik Suhartono)
T
he World Health Organization has predicted over 65 percent of seniors worldwide will reside in emerging countries by 2050. This forecast raises an urgent question: Are those countries equipped to care for their seniors?
Seniors are a particularly vulnerable demographic. Many developing countries overlook the welfare of older adults amid other competing issues, such as children’s health, youth education and economic growth.
In contrast, an inclusive policy should never discriminate against age in providing for the population. Is it not staggering that Jakarta, Indonesia’s biggest city, is inhabited by more than 10 million citizens yet has only around five nursing homes? New York has only around 8 million residents, yet it is easy to find 20 times as many nursing homes.
If Jakarta lacks facilities for seniors, what can be expected from smaller cities in Indonesia? This disparity underscores the acute lack of infrastructure for senior care in Indonesia.
According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), 26 million people above 60 years old accounted for 10 percent of the country’s population in 2020. The institution also predicted that this number will double to 20 percent in 2045. Furthermore, the United Nations expects that aging people will make up 74 million, around 25 percent of Indonesia’s population in 2050.
Given these perplexing figures, Indonesia must take immediate action. The government alone is not enough. It needs help from the private sector to sustain older adults. They need to collaborate and work together to care for older adults by building infrastructure, for instance, nursing homes.
Tartinah, a senior in her 80s, who I met at one of the biggest public-owned senior citizen centers in Jakarta, was left there by her family without consent. She still spoke eloquently and reminded me of my late grandmother, who was fragile but emotionally present during her final years. Many other seniors there suffered from medical conditions and were abandoned by their families due to financial strain.
