Sri Lanka's population has mean age of 33.95 years.[i] The female life expectancy in Sri Lanka is 80.4 years, while the male life expectancy is 73.8. [ii] Women have almost seven years of added life compared with that of men. Since patriarchal practice dictates that a woman should be younger than the men at the time of marriage, most women are bound to outlive their spouse by several years in singlehood. Life expectancy is around 21.1 years at 60 years. The newly reduced retirement age to 60 years from 65 years due to the economic crisis forces the older population to a life of inactivity for around twenty years or more. Instead of expanding the employability of the population, reducing the retirement age in a population heading towards a dependency crisis on the working population is ironic.
Research Project
The Centre for Social Concerns (CSC) undertook an assessment in 2022 of one hundred ninety-nine older women and fifty-two older men in ten different districts covering the rural, urban, plantation, fishing, and agriculture and informal sector communities. Given the qualitative nature of the assessment, the sample of respondents provides a fair view of the older population in Sri Lanka particularly of the marginalized groups. The over-60 category is not a homogenous group. They are dependent on their activeness vs. ill-health, mobility vs. immobility, family support vs. the lonely, poverty, ethnic and cultural dimensions innate to the different cohorts. These are some of the determinant factors of quality of life in old age.
Main Findings
Sri Lanka, ranked 76th on the Human Development Index, has outperformed countries at a similar level of development. However, increasing numbers of elderly in a population creates challenges as well as opportunities. Sri Lanka's age dependency ratio for the dependent population was: 46.3 percent reported in 2019. A higher ratio indicates more financial stress on the working population.
The Ministry of Social Empowerment and Welfare is mandated to hold direct responsibility for the older persons to provide people-friendly - social and economic services to marginalized and disadvantaged people: Poor, Elderly, Disabled, and Single Parents. With a feminization of the population, especially in the upper age group, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Committee highlights that the discrimination that older women experience is often a result of unfair resource allocation, maltreatment, neglect, and limited access to essential services.
Article No. 8 of the United Nations General Recommendations No. 27 on older women and the protection of their human rights states that older women are not a homogeneous group. They have a great diversity of experience, knowledge, ability, and skills.[iii] Article 15 of the Recommendations provides that the full development and advancement of women cannot be achieved without taking a life cycle approach. It will help to recognize and address the discrimination at different stages of women's lives through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age and its impact on the enjoyment of human rights by older women. Therefore, the crucial role of the Ministry of Women, Child Affairs and Social Empowerment is underscored in meeting the CEDAW Committee recommendations.
Sri Lanka considers 60 years as the age of retirement. However, the assessment shows that 60 percent of women and 69 percent of men in all age groups over 60 are economically active and that 36 percent of even 80-plus women support their children and grandchildren, even though their income is low. 50 percent of the older women receive family support for their livelihood-related activities contributing positively towards intergenerational support and interdependence.
Men are more visible in leadership roles within the family, neighborhood, and community. Over 50 percent of women also play leadership within the families, neighbors, and in the communities. Women's leadership during emergencies is mainly based on traditional knowledge and practices, whereas men intervene to resolve conflicts or transport the injured/sick for hospitalization. The women of the respondent group belong to an era where government and non-governmental interventions promoted leadership among women, making them more visible in the leadership of Community Based Organizations (CBOs). Between women and men, women tend to save their earnings and the government dole in banks, at home, or, a small percentage with others.
The key ailments of older persons are non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, arthritis, cataract, diabetes, and dental issues. There are, however, district disparities in the severity of the ailments. For instance, older persons in Colombo indicate a high incidence of hypertension and arthritis, whereas in Nuwara Eliya, the same diseases are recorded as much less. However, it is also noted that there is a vast difference in the ability to access health services in the mentioned districts.
The most visible disabilities among older persons are poor vision, poor hearing, stroke, and dental issues. A smaller number of females and males suffer from incontinence, and it is one of the areas that affect the quality of life of older persons that is overlooked. Older adults face abuse and violence such as scolding and threatening of being beaten, deprivation of food and medication. Some respondents indicated that sexual abuse of older women does happen in their neighborhood.
More women are recipients of government doles such as Samurdi (The Sri Lanka Government's Poverty Alleviation Programme) (51.5 percent), public assistance (9.4 percent), and elders' allowances (25.8 percent).
Gender is one of the key determinant factors that shape the current status of older women. It directly affects prolonged periods of singlehood among women, as men have a shorter life expectancy.
Certain cultural practices oppress women particularly the dowry system compelling old parents to give their house as dowry to the daughters. Early transfer of assets forces old parents to live with children's families although some live with children by choice, many are not happy. They are expected to engage in reproductive roles across generations without a choice that even curtail their leisure time or neglect their health. Critical discussion with older persons would be required to infuse strategic options like encouraging all children planning to marry to invest on housing, and sparing the elderly from having to give up their houses where they live.
Most women sacrifice their education, being married at a relatively young age, and being forced especially into unpaid reproductive roles that has kept them away from gainful employment. It has prevented women from earning to be more financially independent.
Resulting from the above, women remain poorer than men with little or no access to livelihood and holding assets. In the transfer of assets from their husbands or within the family, women have been unfairly treated. One of the reasons women are forced to live with their daughters in some communities is that the mothers are trapped in giving dowry to their daughters, resulting in them becoming homeless. The women are also socialized into selfless giving by prioritizing the needs of others, and this, in old age, make them more disadvantaged. Despite these odds, out of necessity, women still engage in some livelihood mostly around the house. Often, such meagre earnings again go back to maintain the families of their offspring.
Women continue to play voluntary roles within the communities. However, due to interventions of both government and non-governmental organizations their leadership seems more meaningful and is engaged in the transformation for change.
The National Secretariat for Elders in Sri Lanka is mandated to ensure the rights of older people based on the United Nations Principles and the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA).[iv] It is the responsibility of the Secretariat to, together with the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry on Women Affairs, share their National Plan of Action with the District and Divisional Secretariats and allocate sufficient funds to intervene in the issues of older persons. This includes community-based mobile programs to address issues of older women for which they have limited access.
Stringent policies, civic society and private sector interventions are required to make the older population active and productive and even change the perspective of the "dependent population" through a life-course approach to intervention. Women's rights organizations (WROs) have a strong role to play to ensure that the CEDAW Convention General Recommendations on Older Women are followed and especially advocated with the Ministry of Women, Child Affairs and Social Empowerment to address the issues of older women. All WROs which participated in the assessment expressed the importance of addressing the issues of older women through their projects and programs.
Conclusion
Sri Lanka is becoming a country with the oldest people in the South Asian region. It is also one of the fastest ageing countries in the world, with a larger proportion of women over 60. Therefore, it is appropriate to perceive Sri Lanka with a higher proportion of women's population over 60 facing feminization of the older population.
While analyzing the data, one of the key questions that surfaced was whether the quantity in years added to life has added quality to life of Sri Lanka's older women and men. The assessment clearly highlights the precipitating factors of structural inequality being more sharply reflected in the end of their lives. With longevity, if corrective actions are not taken at the appropriate time, the suffering can be lengthened for many years.
The life-course approach further elaborates how the life-long discrimination has made women subordinate to men through the acculturation into "unpaid gender roles" that have made most older women poor and subservient. The women, more than men, also were not sent to school but were kept at home to look after siblings and engage in other household chores. The denial of education has resulted in poor opportunities to engage in a substantial livelihood and holding at least some means of independent living.
* This article is an edited excerpt of the report of the same title prepared by the Centre for Social Concerns.
The Centre for Social Concerns is an organization registered as a not-for-profit company with a vision of a society that has realized the human potential to harness justice, peace and humaneness. It engages in advocacy on behalf and with marginalized groups with special commitment to the elderly who are one of the most neglected groups in Sri Lanka.
For more information, please contact: Centre for Social Concerns 228, Walauwatte, Batagama North, Sri Lanka, phone:+94-11-2240078; e-mail: centreforsocialconcerns@gmail.com
[i] Sri Lanka Population aged 60+ years, 1950-2021, https://knoema.com/atlas/Sri-Lanka/topics/Demographics/Age/Population-aged-60-years.
[ii] Sri Lanka Population aged 60+ years, 1950-2021, ibid.
[iii] CEDAW/C/GC/27, 16 December 2010, https://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?OpenAgent&DS=CEDAW/C/GC/27&Lang=E.
[iv] Political Declaration and Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA), Second World Assembly on Ageing, Madrid. Spain, 8-12 April 2002, is available at www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/ageing/MIPAA/political-declaration-en.pdf.