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Ageing with Dignity: Old-Age Pension Schemes from the Perspective of the Right to Social Security Under ICESCR

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Abstract

The ‘dignity and worth of the human person’ emphasised in international human rights instruments resonate strongly in relation to the world’s ageing population, which is projected to be the fastest growing population group in the world and often among the most vulnerable. While elderly persons as a group are heterogeneous and their socio-economic life situation varies significantly between individuals, the need for universal support mechanisms such as non-contributory old-age benefits have been recognised by many states, and currently, over 100 countries around the world provide some form of social pension targeted towards the elderly populations. This article appraises a sample of these old-age pension schemes from the perspective of the right to social security, with particular emphasis on the dignity and worth of the human person as espoused within the international human rights regime.

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Notes

  1. The unique nature of poverty among the elderly, based on general and country-specific research, is substantially covered by other scholarly work, including Gasparini et al. (2007), Barrientos (2003) and Lloyd-Sherlock (2000). While some of these core issues are covered in this article, focus is maintained in this article on the impact of social security provisions on the overall welfare of the elderly.

  2. The 2013 report includes 91 countries due to data limitations, which reflects the situation of about 89 % of the world’s population over 60 years.

  3. An overwhelming proportion of the elderly persons live with family in multi-generational households. Of the elderly persons, 62 % live with their own children, 28 % with their spouse, 4 % with other relatives and 2 % live with non-relatives (Department of National Planning 2006).

  4. The policy of introducing a defined old-age social security pension emerged from the political manifesto and campaign pledges of the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) during the first democratic presidential elections in 2008. The new government incorporated the pledge into article 11 of the Maldives Pension Act (8/2009), which guaranteed every Maldivian citizen above 65 years of age (with the residency requirement and pensions-testing) a lifetime fixed monthly income.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments received from the participants of the Higher Degree Research Conference on Social Justice (27 November 2013) at the University of Sydney and Chris Sidoti for providing some additional insights into the first rough draft of this article.

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  1. Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Ahmed Shahid

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  1. Ahmed Shahid
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Correspondence to Ahmed Shahid.

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Shahid, A. Ageing with Dignity: Old-Age Pension Schemes from the Perspective of the Right to Social Security Under ICESCR. Hum Rights Rev 15, 455–471 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-014-0316-4

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