The graying of Latin America

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Will Latin America grow old before it grows rich?

It’s a race against time for countries such as Mexico, which are woefully unprepared for aging societies that will strain their resources in the coming decades. President Felipe Calderon is moving ahead with a campaign promise to provide a pension of about $46 a month for seniors living in the nation’s smallest rural communities.

That’s bingo money for many American retirees. But it’s a godsend in Mexico where the vast majority of elderly have no form of old-age pension and nearly half have no health coverage.

There is no ‘retirement’ for the vast majority of people here. Those who are able work until they drop dead, typically in subsistence farming or street vending. The rest depend on family or charity. Seniors can be seen on the streets of the capital daily begging for loose change.

The twin forces of increased longevity and lower fertility are producing a global elderly boom. Latin America is still one of the world’s youngest regions, but it is aging at warp speed. Within a couple of decades, more than half of the Western Hemisphere’s seniors will live south of the U.S. border.

For some, the future is already here. The hemisphere’s oldest country isn’t the United States or Canada. It’s Uruguay, where more than 17% of the population is over 60, according to a report by the U.S. Census Bureau in partnership with a couple of health organizations.

In Mexico, nearly 20% of the population will be elderly by 2050, up from less than 5% in 2000. Most European nations had at least a century, even two, to adjust to their graying societies. Latin America may soon be grappling with First World levels of elderly with only developing world resources to care for them.

The biggest shock may be cultural. Organizations such as the AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, have no equivalent in Mexico. Employers here routinely advertise for workers in their twenties. Buildings, sidewalks and public transport aren’t equipped to handle users with disabilities.

Posted by Marla Dickerson in Mexico City