[sustran] Free or cheap public transport for pensioners... also in the Global South?

[Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8131567.stm

BBC NEWS
Developing world faces age crisis
By Mark Doyle
World affairs correspondent, BBC News

*New research warns of a population time bomb for developing nations as 
the ratio of elderly people rises faster than in the industrialised 
world. *

A report for the French Institute for Demographic Studies says poorer 
states have only a short time to set up workable pension schemes.

The alternative is the prospect of vast numbers of their elderly people 
living in poverty, the report warns.

The trend has not begun in Africa's poorest states but experts say it will.

It is well known that the proportion of older people is rising in richer 
countries, where many governments and companies are already struggling 
to meet pension commitments.

Historic advances in medical science - such as vaccines - have been one 
reason, as have improvements in public hygiene, such as piped water, and 
the advancement of birth control methods.

But the French research, by social scientist Gilles Pison, says the 
trend is now hitting parts of the developing world - and at a faster and 
gathering pace.

* Gathering pace *

An indicator of the speed of this "population ageing" is the time it 
takes for the proportion of people over a retirement age of 65 to double 
- from 7% of the overall population to 14%.

In France this process took more than a century.

In China, the world's most populous country, the process has only just 
begun - but is projected to take less than a quarter of that time, some 
25 years.

The study says economic advances that increase levels of education and 
global mass communications are making people change their habits far 
more quickly than they did in the old industrialised nations.

Education levels are rising faster in much of Asia now, for example, 
than they did in Victorian England.

* Strapped for cash *

In Vietnam and Syria, the French researchers say, "population ageing" is 
set to rise even faster than it is now in China. The proportion of 
elderly in these two states is set to double over a mere 17-year period, 
beginning in a few years' time.

People living longer sounds good - for now.

But it may also mean that the governments of developing countries, 
already strapped for cash, have only got a few more decades of having 
enough people of working age, who pay taxes, to set up practical 
retirement finance schemes.

If the French researchers are right, it means the current pension crunch 
in rich countries may look relatively insignificant compared with what 
is coming in the future for the rest of the world.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/in_depth/8131567.stm

Published: 2009/07/02 19:55:39 GMT

© BBC MMIX

-- 
--------------------------------------------

Todd Edelman
Green Idea Factory

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CAR is over. If you want it.

"Fort mit der Autostadt und was Neues hingebaut!" 
- B. Brecht (with slight modification)

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