| dc.description.abstract | There is a growing tendency of world's elderly (60 years and above) population and
concentrating in the developing countries. By the year 2025, 72% of the world's elderly
(858 million) population will be living in the developing countries. In 1980, China, India,
Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh were the five top ranking countries in terms of
population lives in Asian and Pacific region. By the year 2025, these five countries will
account for 44% of the world's elderly population.
In Bangladesh, there are 6 million elderly population. This number will be 10 million by
the year 2000 and 24 million by 2025. Bangladesh is one of the 20 countries with the
largest elderly population.
Traditionally, in Bangladesh, the responsibility for the welfare of the elderly lies with their
children and the state has virtually no obligation to provide care for its elderly. Culturally
a son, preferably the eldest one looks after their elderly parents. The daughters have no
direct opportunity to look after her parents in old age due to two main reasons: there may
be objections from her husband and her in-laws, and may view it as a shameful situation.
What happens when there are no sons or when the sons are not available to look after
the parents? Some elderly live on their own or have a poor relative stay with them to take
care of them, while economic provision may be arranged by any children. Traditionally
son provides food and shelter and his wife to takes personal care of her elderly parentsin-
laws. Obviously, in case of a married elderly man, the primary caregiver is his wife if
she is able. The riverse situation, husband caring for his wife, almost never occurs.
However, majority of elderly people continue to live within extended family settings both
in urban and rural areas, because social changes have not occurred significantly in the
extended family. Moreover, the status of old people was not uniformly high in the past. It
is also observed that there was a strong correlation between level of status of elderly and
their economic power. | en_US |
