Reduced Inequalities

Populations in the UNECE region are ageing rapidly. To maintain economic growth and standard of living, people would need to work longer before they can retire. Regarding people who are currently in their working age, demographic change may require to include those into the labour market who were previously not fully integrated, such as early school leavers, women and migrants. In a knowledge society, this all requires a good standard of basic education as well as vocational training, tertiary education, information and communication technology (ICT) and language skills.

Over the last two years, the world economy has been rocked by multiple non-economic shocks, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the war in Ukraine. Climate-related disasters continue to increase in frequency and severity. Together, these events have had enormous socio-economic consequences due to the interrelated nature of economic, social and environmental risks. But not all countries and people have been impacted in the same way, in part because a financing divide is sharply curtailing the ability of many developing countries to respond to shocks and invest in recovery. The outbreak of COVID-19 delivered a seismic shock to the global economy, but developed countries were able to respond with aggressive macroeconomic policies.

Old age disadvantage begins at birth. Much of the inequality between older persons has its roots in early life conditions. Without policies to prevent it, disadvantages reinforce one another through peoples’ lives, leading to large disparities among older adults. A life course perspective on ageing is critical to improving people’s health and well-being throughout the life course into old age. The onset and severity of disability – affecting either physical or mental health – profoundly impacts the lives of people and their families and incurs large economic and societal costs in terms of health care and caregiving needs. Disability is a key outcome of unequal ageing as it has been tied to both early life conditions, such as childhood poverty and later life risk factors, including health behaviors, occupation and chronic stress. Examining physical functional limitations as a measure of disability lends itself to cross-national comparisons of inequalities in health in old age as it measures difficulties that people face in carrying out tasks in their daily living, and does not depend on access to health care and medical professionals for diagnosis, as is the case for examining differences in the prevalence of diseases, such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease.

Ageism is the stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination against people based on their age. Many older workers face ageism when looking for new jobs, training opportunities and career development or are pushed to leave into early retirement in times of economic recession. Ageism in the labour market is costly to businesses who do not make the most of their ageing workforce. At the individual level, ageism has been shown to negatively affect health and well-being. The complexity and intersectionality of the phenomenon needs to be addressed now. Deeply rooted stereotypes, prejudices and discriminatory practices take time to change. Combating ageism in the world of work requires removing ageist provisions in the legal and regulatory framework, addressing prejudice and negative stereotypes about older workers and encouraging age-inclusive and age-diverse workplaces that offer equal opportunities for all generations.

Population ageing has important and far-reaching implications across all spheres of society. Ageing-related issues therefore need to be integrated into all policy fields in order to bring societies and economies in harmony with demographic change. This policy brief looks at how Governments can do this and provides selected examples. It also addresses the ways in which all age groups can be equally involved in designing, implementing and evaluating ageing-related policies and programmes.

The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in significant output contractions, deteriorating social conditions and worsened debt sustainability. Some countries that had previously attained higher income status and deemed no longer to need grants and concessional finance in the form of Official Development Assistance (ODA) are once again in need of heightened international support. This includes countries that slid back to a lower income category as well as higher income vulnerable countries, such as numerous small island developing States (SIDS), who have found it difficult to respond and recover from the pandemic without support. Access to ODA, including through concessional finance windows at multilateral development banks (MDBs), is generally linked to gross national income (GNI) per capita. As developing countries attain higher income per capita status, access to grants and concessional windows declines. As a result, countries’ average cost of borrowing generally becomes more expensive, with shorter maturities, which can widen financing gaps in normal times. In times of crises, these gaps are magnified, underscoring countries’ need for support. Recognition that the need for support is often linked to factors that are not measured by income has led to MDBs, in particular, to include important exceptions in eligibility criteria, including incorporating vulnerability. However, it has often been ad hoc and not based on a full analysis of risk factors. This policy brief outlines the criteria to access ODA, why it needs to improve and suggests a way forward.

Child support—a monetary transfer from a non-resident parent to a lone parent to assist with the cost of raising children following union dissolution—is a critical source of income for the increasing proportion of lone-mother families, especially those at risk of experiencing poverty and material hardship. However, in a wide range of countries, a significant proportion of lone mothers do not receive financial support from their children’s father. Drawing on cross-national evidence and the Luxembourg Income Study Database (LIS), this policy brief highlights the importance of child support for lone-mother families and factors that may prevent lone mothers from receiving this transfer. It concludes with a series of recommendations to ensure regular and adequate child support is provided.

La protection sociale occupe une place de plus en plus importante dans l’agenda du développement social en Afrique subsaharienne. Des systèmes de protection sociale complets peuvent contribuer à éliminer la pauvreté et à réduire les inégalités, stimuler une activité productive et la croissance économique, et créer une résilience face aux crises multiples et récurrentes, en particulier s’ils fonctionnent en tandem avec d’autres politiques sociales et du marché du travail. Récemment, les pays de la région ont largement utilisé les instruments de protection sociale pour faire face aux retombées économiques et sociales de la pandémie de COVID-19. Dans ce contexte, cette note analyse dans quelle mesure et de quelles manières les pays de la région intègrent l’égalité des sexes et l’autonomisation des femmes dans leurs efforts de protection sociale, tirant parti d’une base de données unique de stratégies nationales de protection sociale de 30 pays de la région, y compris 14 en Afrique de l’Ouest et centrale, et 16 en Afrique de l’Est et australe. Elle constate que si un nombre important de stratégies reconnaissent les risques et les vulnérabilités liés au genre, peu incluent des actions spécifiques pour y faire face. Cette note s’achève par un ensemble de recommandations pour une intégration accrue des préoccupations relatives à l’égalité des sexes dans les efforts visant à mettre en place des systèmes nationaux de protection sociale.

This policy brief presents determinants and risk factors of poor mental health among older persons and provides a detailed overview of the prevalence of mental health disorders among older persons of different socio-demographic characteristics across the region. The policy brief highlights different policy strategies to promote, protect and care for the mental health of older persons, with examples contributed by Governments and civil society organizations across the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region. The policy brief also offers a checklist of effective measures to promote and protect the mental health of older persons covered in this brief.

Extreme weather events and rising sea levels are having an increasing impact on human mobility, especially within specific countries. In 2022, for example, there were 32.6 million disaster-induced displacements around the world, the highest figure seen in a decade, and 70 percent of these took place in Asia Pacific regions. Policy actors need to anticipate and prepare for future human mobility patterns exacerbated by the effects of climate change to ensure that those who move have their human rights protected and can contribute meaningfully to the communities in which they arrive. Knowing how to anticipate, invest and act on these futures now and needing to react to immediate priorities is, however, challenging. This paper outlines the promise of an anticipatory policy design approach that blends predictive analytics with qualitative foresight to provide the data and space that stakeholders need to effectively adapt and anticipate such events. The approach is introduced here as part of an initiative to analyse the scale and effects of migration to Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam and Karachi, Pakistan by 2050 as a result of the effects of climate change.