Algeria faces a rapidly-ageing population

02/05/2008

Due to an improved average life expectancy and a drop in birth rate, Algeria's population is ageing. Lawmakers hope to address the changing needs of the elderly population, which is expected to rise to 40% of the national total by 2040.

By Hayam El Hadi for Magharebia in Algiers – 02/05/08

[Getty Images] As Algeria's baby-boom draws to a close, the ministry for national solidarity predicts that senior citizens will make up 40% of the population by 2040.

According to statistics from the ministry for national solidarity, Algerians are getting older. In a predicted demographic shift, senior citizens – 10% of the population in 2008 – will make up 40% by 2040. This is the first time such a phenomenon has been recorded in Algeria, and authorities have drafted a new law to protect the growing number of senior citizens.

Demographers are reporting a net slow-down in the rate of population growth, which has had the effect of reducing the relative size of the category of youngest people, increasing the numbers of adult age categories and progressively increasing the size of the highest age categories.

Experts say the shift is due to several factors, including improved average life expectancy, which has risen from 47 in 1962 to 71 in 2001. Another reason is the end of the baby boom. At the start of the 1980s, a woman would conceive an average of seven children, compared with two today, due to the wider availability of contraception and deteriorating social conditions.

To avoid several of the potential pitfalls of such a population change, the national solidarity ministry has proposed a new law to protect senior citizens.

According to Minister for National Solidarity Djamel Ould Abbès, the bill – presented on National Senior Citizens’ Day (April 27th) and expected to come into force this summer – sets out penalties for offspring who abandon their parents in old people’s homes.

"Taking someone into care in a centre costs between 18,000 and 20,000 dinars," said Ould Abbès. "I would prefer to give this sum as a board and lodging payment so that these people can be looked after at home. I would like these centres to have disappeared by 2010."

According to official figures, some 3,000 elderly Algerians are currently accommodated in 28 specialist centres. Most suffer from chronic diseases and never see their families.

Considered at odds with Algerian social values, the abandonment of the elderly is becoming a more significant issue.

Financial difficulties are often cited by the offspring, who explain that they can no longer afford to buy medicines for their parents or pay for in-home care. This is the case for state-business employee Mounir, who wept as he discussed the circumstances that forced him to put his father, 77, into the Dély Ibrahim centre in Algiers.

"Everything was fine until my mother died," he said. "After she had gone, my father’s health deteriorated suddenly. He had been treated for diabetes for a long time, but then he started to suffer from high blood pressure and chronic depression. He needed virtually constant care."

Economic realities demand that Mounir and his wife both work. "At first, I was very angry. You see, in our culture, a child who abandons his father is looked down upon by society as ungrateful. I ended up considering the facts: as I couldn’t afford to have a nurse at home, the centre remained the only option."

Told about the provisions in the new law, Mounir replies that if financial aid was offered to him he wouldn’t think twice about taking his father back home and paying for in-home care.

El Hadja Malika also blames financial problems for her unhappiness. A lifelong housewife, Malika said: "On retirement, I received a pension of 6,000 dinars. I became a burden to my children. It was my decision to leave home and move into this centre... I don’t want to be a burden on anyone. I’m fine here at the centre, but I miss the warmth of family life. If my pension had been enough, I would have stayed in my house so that I could enjoy my grandchildren."