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| Counting the Cost for Pensioners |
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Another way in which governments have attempted to reduce their provision for the elderly has been in regards to the provision of care home places. First of all, the system was opened up so that private care homes could compete to supply local councils with care facilities, based on the notion that the private sector would provide a more efficiently priced service. Due to negative publicity about cases of abuse and neglect in care homes, the government has brought in stricter regulations regarding the standards of facilities and staff training. Despite the increased costs involved for owners of care homes in complying with these measures, government funding for care home places is only increasing by around 3–4% each year. The result is that over the past decade hundreds of homes have had to close and thousands of beds have been lost. According to the Salvation Army, between January 2002 and April 2003 alone, 745 independent care homes closed down and 13,400 places for the elderly and disabled were lost. The figures for 2003-4 indicate a further net loss of 9600 homes. While some of these closures may have been due to the owners deciding to take advantage of the booming property market, the main losers have still been the elderly and vulnerable. Demand for these places has decreased at the same time however, as local authorities have started to employ more home care visitors instead. This may save cash-strapped authorities vital funds, but it also increases the isolation of the elderly who may only see their carer once a fortnight. The loss of these facilities could lead to a dangerous shortfall once the numbers of elderly who must have full-time residential care starts to increase again.
Another measure that has been proposed in order to reduce the tax burden is an increase in the statutory pension age for women, from 60 to 65. This change, which will be phased in between 2010 and 2020, reduces the cost of providing pensions for women; now there are calls for the retirement age of men to be increased to 70, or a joint pension age of 67 for both men and women. However, the fact that an ever greater number of 60–64 year olds are retiring early before the statutory age, thus depriving the state of more tax revenue, limits the extent to which this method will have a significant impact. Also, this approach leaves the elderly who are too infirm to continue working in an even more precarious situation, as they have to wait longer for eligibility for funds yet they cannot work to support themselves. Alongside this, there are greater efforts to counter ageism in the workplace, so that more pensioners remain in the workforce. Whether there is widespread enthusiasm amongst the elderly about the prospect of working into their sixties and seventies after a full working life is a different matter.
An alternative approach to the funding problem is to look for ways of increasing the working population, thereby increasing the amount of revenue being injected into the tax system. The primary means by which this is to be achieved is to allow greater amounts of immigrants of working age to enter the country, thereby improving the dependency ratio. Immigration not only increases the working population; since such immigrants are sought from countries where birth rates are higher, this can help to reverse the decline in population growth which is at the heart of the pensions crisis. This approach has been tried across Europe by different states facing similar problems of labour shortage and stagnant or negative population growth.
However, the issue of immigration and asylum is perhaps the most explosive and hotly debated subject in the political arena at present. Regardless of prosaic matters such as statistics on tax revenue and consideration of fiscal reform; or the contribution, economic and otherwise, made by immigrants in their host societies, in the popular imagination the issue of immigration is one of the home territory being ‘swamped’ by hordes determined to strip the country bare. In the face of this public hostility and concern, rather than advocating any increases in immigration, the government is doing all it can to portray itself as tough on immigration. It is unlikely that any government or mainstream political party in the near future would start to advocate an opening up of immigration policy, regardless of the merits claimed by its supporters.
After careful consideration, it is clear that the increasing unwillingness of successive governments to provide adequate care for the elderly has had serious consequences for one of the most vulnerable sectors of society. The solution for this problem lies in a fundamental reconsideration of where the responsibility and burden of care for the elderly really lies. As stated before, it is a common view that the government bears the main responsibility for the situation of the elderly today. This is in no small part due to the fact that, for years, the government has taken taxes from working people on the premise that it would provide for them in later life. The government’s ability to marshal resources and finances undoubtedly exceeds that of the average citizen, so this in turn leads to the expectation that the state should be able to do better at caring for the elderly.
From the individualistic perspective that society is accustomed to, people are expected to make their own judgements on what responsibilities they wish to take on, but at the same time, there are expectations of what people are entitled to. As we have seen before, the increasing atomisation of society has inclined people to cherish separation from familial responsibilities, but to provide care for people in old age at arms length means that people have to bear an increasing tax burden to fund the system adequately. While people see the burden of care for the old as unappetising, it is clear that the current system requires that they must pay more and do more to see the situation of the elderly improve. As the situation of private funded pensions comes to mirror that of the public system, it is also clear that there will be no magic bullet from the private sector.
Despite talk of ‘government priorities’ or ‘government responsibilities’ towards the elderly, the phrase holds little meaning in itself; whatever responsibility the government takes on, it is the public who will foot the bill. Even though there may be reluctance among many people to care for their relatives, they are involved in that care indirectly anyway. The funds that provide services and benefits for the elderly come from taxes on the working population who are the children of that earlier generation. As demographic factors take effect, the future of care for the elderly in the UK is very bleak. It is quite clear that the current system cannot continue indefinitely, due to the decreasing ratio between workers and pensioners. Unless people look beyond the narrow confines of the individualistic mindset that negates the importance of care for others, the most likely result is that increasing numbers of the elderly will live in isolation and deprivation.
The Islamic perspective on responsibilities towards the relatives, especially the elderly, differs from the western perspective. The key reason for this difference is that the Islamic view towards society and family places a greater emphasis on the fulfilment of mutual responsibilities than on the sovereignty of the individual and his autonomy from the wider community. It could be said that, in the traditional liberal viewpoint, the State is viewed as a ‘necessary evil’ essential to guarantee the liberty of the citizens to pursue happiness as they choose. In the Islamic view, the Islamic State is the formal embodiment of the collective duties that must be undertaken by the Ummah (Islamic ‘nation’ , towards themselves and the world as a whole.
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