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ChapterC
AGEING, SOCIALPROTECTIONANDSOCIOECONOMICCHALLENGES
Population ageing is a worldwide phenomenon. In 2015, in the LatinAmerica and Caribbean region, the
population 60 years and over amounts to more than 70 million persons, representing 11.2% of the
regional total. In another 15 years, this segment will amount tomore than 119million, andwill represent
16.7% of the total. The last 50 years have seen notable gains in life expectancy. Never in human history
have people lived so long as they do today.
This reality poses some profound questions about the needs and interests of a population segment
that is growing steadily and swiftly. The social protection systems that were created in the 1970s in Latin
America and the Caribbean still fell short of those achieved in Europe. A longer life brings with it
opportunities for people in good health, but regional reality shows that the understanding of morbidity is
still limited in the region and while people are living longer they do not always enjoy a high quality of
life. As a result, health costs per capita for the over-65 age group are three to five times higher than for
young people. Ageing also affects pensions and retirement allowances, as the numbers of beneficiaries
increase and benefits are paid over amuch longer time (ILO, 2009).
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Similarly, as the population ages an
ever greater proportion of persons can expect to reach an age—75 years or more— in which they are at
greater risk of becoming frail and of developing multi-morbidity conditions that require care on a
continuing basis (Council of theEuropeanUnion, 2014)
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.
The Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development includes 15 priority measures
dealing with the issue of population ageing and social protection. The topics covered by the priority
measures relate to participation, social insurance, education, health, care, dignified death, work, violence,
discrimination, savings, and public policies, among other matters. At the present time, most of these
topics form part of various international human rights instruments, declarations and resolutions of the
United Nations General Assembly, Conventions of the International Labour Organization, reports and
standards prepared for the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, and the jurisprudence of
treaty bodies, among other sources, including some that have been adoptedwithinECLAC.
The Inter-American Convention on protecting the human rights of older persons is the most
recent international instrument and was adopted by the General Assembly of the Organization of
American States (OAS) on 15 June 2015,
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with the signature of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and
Uruguay.
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The purpose of this Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the recognition and full
enjoyment and exercise, on an equal basis, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of older
persons, in order to contribute to their full inclusion, integration, and participation in society. The
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SeeResolutionAG/RES. 2455 (XXXIX-O/09) HumanRights andOlder Persons of the forty-fifth regular session of
theGeneralAssemblyof theOrganizationofAmericanStates.
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Thewill and concern of governments to establish an international treaty on the protection of the human rights of
older persons was first formally expressed in the Brasilia Declaration, adopted at the second Regional
Intergovernmental Conference on Ageing in Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by ECLAC in 2007.
Today, after three years of work, the region of theAmericas is the first in theworld to have enshrined the rights
and freedoms of older persons in a single binding instrument.
