Reduced Inequalities

Dementia is becoming increasingly prevalent across the UNECE region. The disease entails a progressive loss of cognitive capacity and eventual disability, which can result in deterioration of quality of life. Dementia has high social and financial costs, affecting people with dementia and their caregivers. People living with dementia are often discriminated against: their dignity is challenged today by many factors including the retrenchment of welfare resources, and the changing structure of families. The issue of dignity and non-discrimination of people with dementia has often been overlooked, however, due to their limited representation in public debates and the stronger focus of research and policy on issues such as welfare sustainability and the well-being of caregivers.

This year marks the 20-year milestone of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing, a landmark agreement in which Governments committed to “building a society for all ages”. The Madrid Plan of Action contains a broad range of objectives, including that of reducing poverty among older persons. Poverty is a particular risk for older persons. Most people work less or stop working altogether at some point in old age, either for health reasons, family responsibilities, because they must or want to retire at the statutory retirement age, or because discrimination undermines their employment opportunities. While many older persons remain productive, many of their contributions to their countries’ economies, to their communities and to their families are not formally recognized or paid. Their economic well-being depends on the availability of public income support, affordable health care, family support and savings to a greater extent than that of the working-age population. Because of the disadvantages they experience throughout their lives, older women may suffer from higher levels of poverty than old men.

Although ageing policies are often dealt with in the context of the national public policy agenda, there is also a need for regional, sub-regional and international cooperation on this topic, as many issues do not end at national borders. Regional cooperation may be helpful as states of the same region often share similar cultural, economic, or political contexts.

Realizing a society for all ages is the declared goal of Governments in member States of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. To this end, achieving the integration and participation of older persons in society are important elements. This policy brief outlines the main strategies that may be considered to increase participation of older persons in political and economic life and to improve their access to transport, appropriate housing and cultural activities. It highlights the importance of balanced intergenerational relationships based on mutual respect. Efforts may be made to reduce ageism and to destigmatize old age. The potential of volunteering may also be used – both in support of older generations and by the older generations themselves.

International migration is an integral part of the development process in countries of origin, transit and destination. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes several targets related directly to international migration or migrants. The most explicit among them is target 10.7, which calls on countries to facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies. Other migration-related targets in the 2030 Agenda include strengthening and retaining the health workforce in developing countries (target 3.c), providing scholarships for study abroad (target 4.b), respecting the labour rights of migrant workers (target 8.8), reducing the costs of transferring remittances (target 10.c), ending human trafficking (targets 5.2, 8.7 and 16.2), establishing legal identity, including through birth registration (target 16.9) and disaggregating data by various characteristics, including migratory status (target 17.18). In addition, international migration can facilitate the achievement of other Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda, including those related to eradicating poverty, facilitating access to health care, education and decent work, and promoting economic growth and gender equality.

Domestic public finance is essential to financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), providing public goods and services, increasing equity, and helping manage macroeconomic stability. The Addis Ababa Action Agenda places domestic resource mobilization at the core of the actions that countries need to take to deliver sustainable development. Countries have been working to increase revenues so that they can invest in the SDGs, but tax avoidance, tax evasion and corruption are undermining countries’ efforts. Illicit financial flow (IFF) is the term that covers these activities (see Figure 1) that cross borders and reduce the availability of resources for financing sustainable development, including recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Agenda, Member States committed to eliminate IFFs. Since 2015, they have taken many actions to boost transparency and combat IFFs, but there is more work to be done. Eliminating IFFs will require further actions across the sphere of national and global governance as well as international cooperation. Transparency about the actors in economic and financial matters is an essential component in the ability of country authorities to enforce the law, reduce corruption and ensure taxpayers pay all taxes that are due. Increasing the accuracy and transparency of beneficial ownership information is an important component of solutions for reducing tax avoidance and evasion and combatting corruption and money-laundering.

SDG progress has been set back, and the outlook faces uncertainty given the cumulative and amplified impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and climate change. This brief examines the channels through which these three shocks are impacting the SDGs and their implications for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development through recurrent crises. COVID-19 is estimated to have caused nearly 15 million deaths globally and brought the economy and people’s lives to a standstill for long periods in many parts of the world. The pandemic and the containment measures to control it significantly slowed economic growth, increased unemployment, raised poverty and hunger, widened inequality, and caused additional adverse impacts on women and children in many countries around the world. With uneven access to vaccines and treatments, and the continuing emergence of new variants, the pandemic continues to exert a malign influence on sustainable development.

The economic and societal implications that result from demographic change may have an impact on how certain generations or age-groups are perceived by the majority of the population or community. Often older family members or neighbours are respected and well integrated members of their community. They also often dispose of a considerable knowledge, experience and consumer power through life-long accumulated savings. Older persons are thus able to assist younger family members and their community with advice through gained experience. But in some cases older persons are faced with neglect and negative stereotypes. A displacement of older persons into segregated communities, an undervaluing of their contributions to society, and negative media portrayals, contribute to a decrease in face-to-face contact with older persons, foster the growth of a gap between generations and a general lack of empathy towards people of different age-groups.

In recent decades, all regions of the world have seen substantial progress in life expectancy at birth, which was estimated to be at 72.8 years in 2019 compared with 64.2 years three decades ago. As importantly, life expectancy has increased at all ages such that a person at age 65 in 2019 was likely to live 6.2 years longer than in the early 1950s (United Nations, 2022). But life expectancy differs significantly across countries and within them. Inequalities in health and in life expectancy across countries have received attention from the international community, which recognized that such inequalities are unfair and beyond an individual’s control. Assessing country-level inequality in life expectancy is therefore useful to examine whether outcomes in countries with high increases in life expectancy differ by their social and health policies. For instance, reducing inequality in life expectancy across countries points to the role that health policies play in controlling a wide range of diseases responsible for disparities in child and maternal mortality.

Population ageing in UNECE member States has given rise to fears that abuse of older persons may increase in its incidence, prevalence and complexity. Stereotypes may provide the breeding ground for abuse in society. Given the taboo attached to the topic, abuse and neglect are often underreported. Older people may be silent for fear of exposing a family member, losing services or being institutionalized. Therefore, there is a lack of reliable internationally comparable data to evaluate the phenomenon.